Pear Conserve

Photo Credits to Debra Pietrangelo-Thank you for sharing, you're so gifted!

 Downtown Tecumseh hosted my very favorite event last night; Holiday Open House.  Our downtown was decked out in white fairy lights, horse drawn carriages, burning barrels, carolers and more.  It's an extremely charming evening.

I apologize to my visitors for running out of recipe cards, so here you go!!  Pear Conserve; lovely on cheese, scones, ice cream or the Effie's Nutcakes we served it on.  It's a taste of Autumn and a great taste to kickoff your holiday season!

PEAR CONSERVE

2 ½ cups fresh pears, peeled, cored and chopped

½ cup water

3 Tablespoons Lemon Juice (bottled if canning)

1.75 ounce package of pectin

1 ¾ cup granulated sugar

½ cup raisins

1/3 cup pecans, toasted and chopped

¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon

In a large saucepan over high heat, combine water, pears and lemon juice to a boil.  Reduce heat, cover and simmer for 10 minutes.  Stir in pectin, increase heat and bring back to a full boil, stirring constantly.  Stir in sugar and raisins.  Return to a boil and allow to boil for 1 minute, stirring constantly.   Remove from heat and stir in pecans and cinnamon.  Ladle into a sterilized jar, wipe rim and attach lid.  Process in hot water bath for 15 minutes.  Yields 2 2/3 cups- approximately 2 half pints plus a little leftover to eat right away!

 

Preserved Wine Poached Pears

Just the title gets me excited!  And make no mistake, this is an exciting recipe!  I have a few preserving cookbooks published in England that intrigue and confuse me on many levels.  I love their use of sweet/savory ingredients, yet warming sugar in the oven before adding to the pan...huh?  Why?  There is no scientific answer, so it must be a "that's the way we do it" answer.  I have some of those deals too...except my preserving class has kept me on my toes in questions!

This recipe is one of those things too.  I know it worked, yet, I still need to wait 6 months to find out if it was a success and the pears are still sealed without any scary bacterias.  I'm sure this is not approved by the USDA (but really, please read my "food pyramid" post to see how much I trust their opinion on food these days :))  but with all the wine and sugar, I'm sure nothing scary will survive and they are SO good!

My honest concern is that I used pears I grew organically....just remember, wine kills EVERYTHING! 

So, I peeled about 6 small pears, whole, leaving the stem attached for a rustic look.  I stuffed about 3 pears per pint jar and added a cinnamon stick broken into 3 pieces (3 inches), about 6 whole cloves and  3inch long pieces of lemon and orange zests to each jar.  I wanted them to be quite spiced!

In a large pot, I combined a bottle of delicious Pinot Noir wine (taste to make sure you like first!) and 1 1/2 cups sugar, brought it to a boil and boiled for 5 minutes.  I preheated the oven to 250 degrees.  I then poured the wine over the pears until about a 1/2 inch clearance was reached, checked for air bubbles and put the seals and lids on.  I popped the whole filled jars into the oven and cooked them for about 2 1/2 hours.  I removed them from the oven and checked the seals after 24 hours.

It worked!  Weird and fabulous!  Beautiful and so amazingly delicious!  Warm it was even better...and then I drank the juice!  In case you missed that...drink the wine too!  If you're not into preserving foods, find a friend and talk them into making these, you won't be sorry!

 

September Pleasures

This week brought pleasures that are strictly for the month of September!  Years ago I planted some sweet white wine grapes with the thought I'd want to make wine.  I do not want to make wine.  It seems I just cleaned out the basement and I'm not willing to put anything else down there!

 This year was a lovely harvest from that vine and today I will make some beautiful, sparkly, white grape jelly.

John and I have given each other many trees as gifts over the years.  For our 10th wedding anniversary John gave me a magnolia tree with the brightest, most delicious blossoms in May that you can imagine.  It's a special treasure all year long.  Four years ago, I gave him a pear tree for his birthday and we have enjoyed a peck or so each year.  This year, the little pear that could...DID!  Wow, we ended up having to pick these pears a bit before their time to save the branches from breaking.  They are now laid out on boards to ripen. 

I hope you are ready for pear recipes!  Last year I made a lovely mascarpone cheese and pear pie, it will be difficult to find something new to create that tops that one!  I will be posting recipes as the pears ripen.

Our Pierre has decided that summer is officially over, as you can see from the evidence of a rainy, cold week:

I should be angry, but we left them in fair game areas and the end-of-summer sales softened the blow!  How can you be mad at this?