The Last of the Pears

Yummy Goodness

I learned how to can last week. A friend invited me over and she showed me how. Let me tell you it is one messy process. The end result is soooooo worth it. We made Pear butter that night. 5 batches in all & split the jars. I have pear butter coming out of my ears. Since it is so delicious I don't mind. On Sunday I looked at the last of the pears sitting in our basket. They were hitting that scary point. You know the point where they still taste good but no one wants to eat them because of all the brown spots. I hated to let them go to waste. I figured if I could make pear butter I could make pear sauce. It was easy! I didn't follow a recipe & the sauce turned out perfect.

::Here is what I did::

wash & core 20-30 pears

I left the skin on because we like the chunkier sauce

put in large cooking pot & cover with water

bring to boil & boil for 30-45 minutes

remove from heat 

ladle pears from pot & set aside the cooked "juice" into a bowl for later

mash up cooked pears & put back in pot

add 1 1/2 cup of sugar (although next time I will add much less)

1 tablespoon of cinnamon

cook at slow boil for 30 minutes

It made 3 large mason jars of the yummiest pear sauce. I didn't can these because I knew our family would eat them too quickly. However next time I'll do more and finish the whole canning process so I will have some whenever wanted. What did I do with the "juice"? I made it into pear cider.

::Here's how::

pour juice back into pot

add 1/2 cup of sugar (like I said I'll add less next time)

a dash of cinnamon

a pinch of nutmeg

& a smidge of cloves

cook at a slow boil for 30 minutes.

My girls love it! The only thing wasted from the pears were the cores. My only complaint is now that I am eating homemade it will be hard to buy store bought. Think I'll be making my own applesauce from now on. Really in truly this process takes a little bit of time but is worth it in the end. If I can do this anyone can. It's super easy. If you end up making some pear sauce, please let me know how it turns out :)