How To Can Pears

It's that time of year!  I canned 7 quarts of pears last night.  The tree is still loaded with pears and I have another tree that will ripen in a couple of weeks.  Pears, unlike peaches or apples, can be picked early and they will continue to ripen.  I pick them early, wrap them in newspaper and let them set in my dark pantry for a few days.  This lets them get to that perfect ripeness.     How To Can Pears Pears Sugar Water Jars Lids and Rings
Wash and peel your pears.  I slice mine into about 1/4-inch slices, discard the hard middle containing the seeds.  I use a lot of my canned pears to make Pear Custard Bars.  When I get tired of slicing all those pears, I start canning them as halves!  Makes the job go much faster and these are great for the boys when they want a snack.   I slice the pears into a large bowl of water with 3 tablespoons of lemon juice added to keep them from turning dark while I'm getting them ready to put into jars.
 While I'm doing this, I'm running my jars through the hot cycle on the dishwasher, you can put them in boiling water for 5-10 minutes to sanitize them as well.  I also have my large canner on the stove with water heating for the hot water bath part of canning and I put my lids and rings in a small sauce pan over low heat in very hot (not boiling) water.  About 15 minutes before I finish the peeling and slicing, using a large pot, I put 6 cups of water and slowly add 2 cups of sugar over medium heat, stirring constantly to dissolve the sugar.  Bring this to a gentle boil.  This makes a light syrup and will fill approximately 7 quarts of pears.  See the chart below for medium and heavy syrup recipes. When the pears are all sliced, using a slotted spoon, remove them from the water/lemon juice and pack them into your hot jars.  Make sure the pears are as flat as possible or you'll have a very large gap at the bottom of your jar when your finished. When your jars are packed with pears, pour the boiling sugar water over the pears leaving 1/4-inch head space.  Using a butter knife or a wooden skewer, run it around the inside of the jar to release any air bubbles.  Wipe the rim of your jar with a damp cloth then adjust hot lids and bands to finger-tight. Put jars in the hot water bath.  Water should be about 1 inch above jar lids.  Cover and bring to a rolling boil.  Start timing your water bath when it begins to boil.   For quarts, 25 minutes.  For pints, 20 minutes. Remove from hot water bath and let sit until cooled.  Lids should be sealed when cooled!  That's it, go can some pears! Syrup (sugar to water ratios) Heavy syrup:  4 cups of sugar to 6 cups of water Medium syrup: 3 cups of sugar to 6 cups of water Light Syrup: 2 cups of sugar to 6 cups of water

Just Peachy

My boys love their jam! I'm milking a goat again so that means homemade yogurt which means using my homemade jam as the "fruit-on-the-bottom"! Peach is one of their favorites. I have a new iPad and have downloaded the bloggin' apps that should simplify this bloggers life for posting more often. We shall see how that goes! Here's my first iPad bloggin' photo!    To can peach jam, you need:   Jars, lids and bands  Peaches  5 1/2 cups sugar  1 pkg Sure-Jell 1 Tbs. butter  2 Tbsp. lemon juice  Peel and finely chop peaches to equal 4 cups. Add peaches, Sure-Jell, lemon juice and butter to a large pot. Bring to a rapid rolling boil. Add sugar. Have hot jars and bands/lids ready and waiting. Bring mixture to a rapid rolling boil that cannot be stirred down. Allow to boil for 1 minute while stirring. Remove from heat. Pour into hot jars, wipe rims of jars, adjust lids and bands. Process in hot water bath for 10 minutes. Remove jars from hot water bath to a towel on the counter and let cool for 24 hours before moving.   ENJOY!

Pear Honey (Revisited)

I posted the recipe for Pear Honey back in November of 2009 but thought I would share the canning process with you this year. If you do a search for pear honey, you will find many different recipes and variations. All of them sound good but my great grandmother canned this pear honey years ago when my mom was a little girl. My mom tracked down her recipe a couple of years ago and canned pear honey.

I received a bushel of pears from my aunt and uncle yesterday and I started working on them tonight by peeling and removing the seeds and any bruised spots. I chopped them in my little chopper gadget. I told my husband that a food process was on my Christmas list for this year.

Pear Honey
6 - 8 cups finely chopped pears
1 (20 oz.) can crushed pineapple
6 c. sugar
1 T. lemon juice
1/3 c. water
1 (14 oz.) bag shredded coconut (optional)
Put finely chopped pears in a large saucepan with lemon juice and water. Cook pears until tender. This could take anywhere from 10 minutes to 30 minutes depending on how soft and ripe your pears were to start with. Just cook them until they are mushy.

Add crushed pineapple, coconut and sugar. Mix well and cook until mixture thickens. This too could take a while but it will happen! Make sure to stir it often to keep it from sticking.

Here it is, thick and bubbly! This smells so good! I wish I could find a candle that smelled like this! Ladle pear honey into hot, sterilized jars. Add hot lids and bands. Process in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes.

This batch made 7 1/2 pints. You can use this as a jam on toast or over hot biscuits. My boys like it over vanilla ice cream. Me...well I don't want to tell....okay....okay....I admit it, I eat it straight from the jar with a spoon! I can open one of those little jelly jars of this and eat a little and within a couple of days the whole jar is gone and I have no idea how it happened but I will tell you that it calls to me each time I pass the refrigerator. Try it, yours will disappear too!

Canning Apple Pie Filling

We picked apples again this morning and my little helper peeled and peeled and peeled. He loves using my Pampered Chef apple peeler. He makes tractor sounds while he's turning the handle.

We canned a few jars of apple slices in a sugar water syrup. These are great for making fried apples.

But my BIG PROJECT of the day was canning homemade apple pie filling for the first time. I found a few different recipes online and then took a look at my apple pie recipe and did some modifications...
Here's what I came up with.
Peel apples and cut into pie-sized slices. I let mine sit in a big bowl of water with some lemon juice added to keep them from turning brown. You should do enough to fill 7 quart jars packed tightly.

Canned Apple Pie Filling
6 - 8 pounds of apples
2 1/2 cups sugar
2 1/2 cups brown sugar
1 cup regular clear gel (not instant clear gel)
2 Tbsp. vinegar
1 Tbsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
1 tsp. salt
5 cups water
5 cups apple juice

Mix sugar, brown sugar, clear gel, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt together in a bowl. Put vinegar, apple juice (I used some I had juiced with the steam juicer earlier but bought is fine too) and water in a large pot on medium heat. As liquid begins to warm pour sugar mixture in stirring WELL to get the clear gel dissolve. I even used my hand mixer for this so it didn't clump. Heat mixture until bubbly, thick and hot. Pack apples into hot jars tightly. I was afraid the thick filling wouldn't get between the apples well if I packed them too tight but that's not a problem so pack them in there. You can tell I have a little space in the bottom of my jars that could have been filled.

Ladle the hot filling into the jars of apples. Using a wooden or plastic utensil, poke around in your apples to release the air bubbles and to help the filling get down to the bottom and in between all the apples. Finish filling each jar with additional filling leaving at least 3/4-inch head space. Filling will expand a bit during processing. Adjust hot lid and bands and process in boiling water bath for 20 minutes.

I had a little of the mixture left over and my boys LOVED it with fresh apple slices. Might have to can some half pints of this as apple dip!

So go can some apple pie filling and this winter when the snow is falling outside, grab a jar, make a homemade pie crust and ENJOY the smell and taste of warm apple pie!

Steam Juicer and Blackberry Jelly

The steam juicer has been the hot topic over on the forums at Chickens in the Road and a post by Dede ~ wvhomecanner on the Farm Bell Blog convinced me that I had to have one. I picked blackberries yesterday morning. Our wild blackberries are doing great this year. These are an inch long and so sweet.

I washed them and put them in my new steam juicer pictured below. Please ignore all those Friendship bread starter bags in the background.

I LOVE this steam juicer. It has simplified my life. If only I had had it last month for my cherries! You can find the one I bought here.

Water goes in the bottom, your fruit in the top and the juice is drained into the middle section and out the tube into a waiting jar. Awesome little invention! It took a few hours to extract the juice but extract the juice it did! From 2 and a half quarts of blackberries, I got almost 2 quarts of juice! Seedless, wonderful juice without the mess of a jelly bag and dripping and crushing....just beautiful juice pouring from the tube into a half gallon jar.
You can can this juice for use later or you can make jelly. I made jelly using this recipe!

Blackberry Jelly
3 3/4 cups juice
4 1/2 cups sugar
1 box pectin
1/2 tsp. butter or margarine (optional)

Extract juice from blackberries. Bring 3 3/4 cups juice and 1 box pectin to full rolling boil. You can add 1/2 tsp butter or margarine to prevent foaming. Stir in 4 1/2 cups sugar. Return to full rolling boil. Stir for exactly one minute. Remove from heat. Skim foam if any. Ladle into prepared jars. Wipe jar rims and threads. Cover with and adjust lids and bands. Process in boiling water bath for 5 minutes.

We've already opened a jar and ate it with some sour dough bread and butter! Delicious!

Making Pizza Sauce

This post probably comes a little late for most of you since the tomato crop has come and gone (at least around here) but I thought I would share it anyway. It will be in the archives for next years canning season or if you canned tomatoes this year, you can use some of those to make it now.

I canned several jars of pizza sauce this year and the boys are loving the homemade pizza! I have been using Suzanne McMinn's pizza crust recipe. It's quick, easy and makes an awesome crust.

The sauce? Well, I cheated a little bit, but hey, if we love the taste and it's easy then I don't see a problem with it.

This made 12 pint jars of sauce.

I used:
1 bag of Mrs. Wages Pizza Sauce mix
Home grown tomatoes, blanched, peeled and liquefied in the blender
A handful of basil leaves, finely chopped
A handful of oregano leaves, finely chopped
Self-rising flour

Work up your tomatoes and then add the sauce mix in a large saucepan. Add your extra basil and oregano. I find this sauce is thinner than I like for our pizzas so I slowly add a tablespoon or two of flour at a time, stir and continue doing this until it reached the thickness we like. Follow the directions on the pizza sauce package for how many tomatoes and the time for cooking. I would tell you but I used all my packages! Pour into clean, hot jars, adjust lids and bands and process in hot water bath for the time recommended by Mrs. Wages also makes an awesome salsa mix that I add a few things to (green peppers, jalapenos, spices, brown sugar, etc.) I have people come to my house just to take jars of my (and Mrs. Wages) salsa home with them.

So, if your in the mood to try your own pizza sauce...go for it. This is an easy one to start with. Maybe I'll branch out and try to invent my own some day....Kentucky Farm Girls Pizza Sauce hmmmmm, maybe I'll just stick with Mrs. Wages!

So make Suzanne's crust, slather on some of this sauce, lots of fresh veggies and pepperoni or whatever you like, mozzarella cheese (or better yet, goat cheese which we have been making, will post about that later.) We made pineapple and Canadian bacon pizzas a few nights ago and they were so good.

I look forward to having pizza this winter without having to drive 12 miles to get to the nearest pizza place!

Today is...

one of those days...one of those perfect days that makes it feel like all is right in the world, well except for my two boys fighting over their bicycle in the backyard but hey that's normal right??!
I have my awesome friends coming to my house for their yearly get together at the end of this week and I am so excited to get to see them.
I have canned green beans and tomatoes this morning. I love using this little book. It's called The Saturday Evening Post: Small Batch Canning and Freezing Cookbook. It was published in 1978. The cover is torn and stained and I got it for 50 cents at a yard sale but I use it every time I can!
I have a load of laundry hanging on the line. I had forgotten how nice sun/wind dried clothes smell fresh from the line. Stuffing my face down in that first towel and taking a big whiff brought back memories of my childhood and the many baskets of clothes we hung on the line and then gathered and folded. There's a breeze blowing and the sun is shining but it's not horribly hot. I haven't even turned the air conditioner on today. Just opened the windows and let the sounds and smells of nature waft through the house.
We've gone a little green around here and decided to put up the clothes line, changed to low flow faucet heads and changed over to the new eco-friendly light bulbs. We have cut our electricity usage by 1/3 already. I have to admit, it's kinda fun finding ways to slow the old meter down plus the extra money we save is nice too!

I also have two loaves of Grandmother Bread rising on the counter! All is well in my little world!

Bread and Butter Pickles

This is another canning recipe. I promise a normal old recipe tomorrow! My cucumber vines are growing very nicely in the garden. I have plans to can bread and butter pickles this year. I canned several pints and quarts year before last and by several I mean 34 quarts and 22 pints. Most of them are gone. Luke and I can eat a whole pint jar when we open one. I have several family members that bride, beg, and just flat out tell me to bring them a jar of my B&B pickles from time to time so they go pretty fast. I also take them to potlucks, fish fries and other foodie get togethers.

There are a lot of recipes for bread and butter pickles floating around out there but this is the recipe I use for canning mine.

15 cups sliced pickling cucumbers
3 onions, thinly sliced
1/4 c. coarse salt
4 c. cracked ice
2 1/2 c. white vinegar
2 1/2 c. sugar
3/4 tsp. turmeric
1/2 tsp. celery seeds
1 T. mustard seeds

Combine cucumbers, onions, salt and ice in a large bowl and mix well. Put weight on and allow to stand for 3 hours. (For weight, I use a plate with a gallon bottle of vinegar or water on top of it.) Drain thoroughly. Combine vinegar, sugar, turmeric, celery seeds and mustard seeds in a large pot. Add drained cucumbers. Place pot on medium-low heat and bring almost to a boil but do not allow to boil. Remove from heat, seal in hot, sterilized jars, adjust lids and bands. Process 10 minutes in hot water bath.

Cherry Jam

What did I do with all those cherries my Dad picked for me while I was gone to Florida? Made jam of course!

The boys love this cherry jam on toast or peanut butter and jelly (technically it's PB & Jam but they don't care). I have a weakness for it on my moms homemade sour dough bread with way too much butter. I ended up with 14 pints before I ran out of Certo. I also froze several quarts for pies, cobblers and homemade ice cream...yummm!
Here's the recipe I use for making this jam (it's not in my cookbook but it will be in the next one!)
Cherry Jam
4 cups of cherries
7 cups sugar
1/2 T. butter or margarine (optional)
2 pouches of Certo

Wash, stem and pit your cherries. Place them in a food processor and liquify/pulse/chop until they are mostly liquid. You will need 4 cups of this. Place in a large saucepan, add sugar, mix well. Add butter (this prevents the white foamy stuff from forming on top of your jam.) Bring to a rolling boil and cook for 1 full minute, stirring constantly. Remove from heat, stir in 2 pouches of Certo. Stir and skim off any floating fruit for 5 minutes. Pour into hot, sterilized jar. Wipe any drips from top edge of jars and top with hot lids and bands. Sit aside to let cool and seal.

If you have access to cherries, go for it!

Hot Pepper Jelly

Do I have any canners out there? I love to can and anything that can be canned, gets canned, around here. Ok, I draw the line at pig's feet but we don't have pigs (yet) so I don't have anything to worry about. This is a little recipe that I got from my cousin. She had some of this stuff mixed with cream cheese and served as a dip at a birthday party I attended. I said, I have to know where you go this stuff. She opened her cabinet, and lo and behold, there were about 30 little jelly jars full of hot pepper jelly, some red and some green! They were beautiful (and very Christmasy!) She said, "I made it! Want the recipe?" Well, heck yes, of course, I want the recipe! So, I now have a bunch of little green jelly jars full of goodness in my pantry. I didn't grow any red peppers last year so I didn't can any red jars, but that will change this year. Anyway, on to the recipe! And don't forget, it makes an awesome dip when mixed with cream cheese and served with Ritz cracker or (my favorite) Frito's!

It would also be so cute to tie a ribbon on a red jar and a green jar, stick them in a little basket and give them as a Christmas present with the recipe attached.

This recipe is not very "hot". You can adjust the jalapenos to your liking.

Hot Pepper Jelly
3/4 c. bell pepper (green or red, your choice)
1/4 c. jalapeno peppers
1 1/2 c. apple cider vinegar
6 c. sugar
1 (4-oz) pkg. Certo
4 drops food coloring (green or red)

Very finely chop peppers (food processor works great for this). Mix peppers, sugar and vinegar in a large saucepan on medium/low heat. Bring to a rolling boil. Remove from heat. I usually very quickly skim some of the pepper peeling pieces from the top at this point. It makes the jelly prettier. Add Certo and food coloring. Stir until jelly starts to thicken. Pour into hot, sterilized jars and seal. Process them in a hot water bath for 10 minutes.