So many firsts this week…get ready for the first guest post on the Old School. To continue the riff on the school metaphor, this is a substitute teacher. Except nice. And you’ll actually learn something.
Er. I’ve heard substitute teachers are great nowdays. So no hate mail, okay? It’s just that in the olden days, when the Damsel was in school, substitute teachers were mean and hateful–made that way by students insisting their names were “Alice Cooper”, causing uproarious laughter from the other students (it’s only funny if you were a teenager in the 70′s) and the teacher wondering what the heck is so funny about that perfectly normal name.
Today’s wonderfully nice, non-traumatized substitute teacher is the Damsel’s own sister. She’s smart, she’s adorable, she’s funny, she’s dripping with talent. So here ya go…you’re going to love it.
I was gifted with two boxes of RIPE pears on Sunday. I love these kinds of gifts. They’re like getting a pregnant cat. They just keep on giving! It was almost a drive-by gifting. I luckily caught the gifter who may have been trying to leave them unannounced, but she still left them. How’d that happen? Anyway, I can’t stand to waste anything so I made a plan! I have a very cute niece who made a bunch of pear butter earlier this year. After hearing her rave about it, I decided I had to give it a try. She was right… it is delicious.
So, I’m paying it forward and sharing the pear butter love.
Pear Butter
(BTW it comes from the Ball Bluebook for preserving foods.)
After I got through shaking at the thought of peeling and coring all those pears, I got down to business. First I washed all the pears…
You’ll need about 20 medium pears. Mine were a bit small so I did a bit more. Peel the pears. I found a potato peeler works fabulously. I’m all about being fabulous. I peel towards me. It is a tested procedure that is faster and more efficient than the hacking that happens when you peel away from yourself. But that’s a topic for another day’s post.
Then cut the pear in half. It’ll be slippery so hold on tight.
Then cut out the core. Pear coring is tedious so I turn on some sweet tunes and rock out while I do it. It goes faster that way.
Cut the pears into a heavy pan.
Add a half a cup of water. I used tap water because it was what I had the most of. You can use whatever water you have on hand. It makes no difference. Really. Also, temperature doesn’t matter. I used hot water because I was bringing it all to a boil and it would speed things along a bit. But if all you have is cold or room temperature water, that would be okay, too. I like to obsess about the easy parts of a recipe. Can you tell? It shows my cooking insecurities. I am helping you out here so you wont have any of these insecurities like I do.
Simmer the pears until soft. Be sure to stir them often because they will scorch and that would be tragic.
Puree them, but be careful not over do it. You don’t want them to liquify. I did this step with an immersion blender (also called a stick blender but I don’t call them that because they are not used to blend sticks and it causes confusion among my very literal brood).
Measure out 2 quarts (it doesn’t have to be exact). Add 4 cups of sugar and cook until the sugar dissolves.
Add ½ teaspoon of nutmeg. Don’t be alarmed at the enormous size of this jar. I got it at Costco, on clearance, if you can believe it. Otherwise I would have never bought so much of something I use to little of. Because everyone knows old spices are no good!
And ⅓ cup orange juice. Don’t you LOVE that my picture shows I didn’t measure exactly? That means you have permission to not really measure exactly, too.
And 1 teaspoon of orange zest. Don’t leave this out because it is the magical ingredient that helps the butter set up.
I tried to take a picture of me grating the zest off the orange, but I found I needed two hands to do that and that left no hands for taking the picture. Oh well. Those are the pitfalls of trying to photograph cooking steps while the brood is off to school. By the way, don’t you just LOVE my cute heart-shaped measuring spoons? I do. It insures everything I make has an extra dose of love in it. It is what makes it so delicious.
Cook until the mixture is thick enough to mound on a spoon. I wondered what that meant, too, so here’s a picture of what that looks like except it shouldn’t be that dark. The lighting was bad when I took this particular shot. Anyway, that’s what I’m telling everyone. It took about 1½ hours to achieve this level of moundedness. I think I just made up a word.
Be sure to stir this often or it will burn. I know this from personal experience. It is not pretty OR tasty.
Ladle the butter into hot, clean jars, leaving ¼ inch headspace. Damsel has discussed headspace before so I wont bore you with descriptions of that. I’ll just give you a photo!
Put lids and screwbands on the jars and then it is time to process them! In a water bath canner, fill the canner to reach the necks of the jars. Bring the water to a boil then set the timer for 20 minutes (in Utah) or only 10 minutes if you live in the lowlands.
Sorry about the blurry picture. I didn’t notice I focused on the handle of the pot rather than the jars like I meant to. It was hot and I clearly got overexcited.
I plan on giving these for Christmas gifts. If you are on my Christmas gift list, act surprised when I show up on your doorstep, okay? It is delicious on everything from toast to pancakes. But my favorite thing to put it on has been my finger.
Now… for your ease and comfort, here’s the recipe straight up, without all my “helpful” pictures.
Pear Butter
from the Ball Bluebook for preserving foods.
6-7 lbs pears (20 medium pears)
4 cups sugar
1 teaspoon grated orange peel (do not skip this ingredient, it gives the recipe the pectin it needs to solidify)
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/3 cup orange juice
Prepare Pulp: Wash pears. core, peel and slice pears. Combine pears and 1/2 cup water in a large saucepot. Simmer pears until pears are soft, stirring often. Puree careful not to liquify. Measure about 2 quarts.
Making butter: Combine pear pulp and sugar in a large saucepot stirring until sugar dissolves. Add remaining ingredients. Cook until thick enough to round up on a spoon. (this will take about an hour, the less it cooks the more runny the butter will be) As mixture thickens, stir frequently to prevent sticking. Ladle hot butter into hot jars, leaving 1/4 inch headspace. Remove air bubbles. Process 10 minutes in canner with lids. For here in Utah I processed them for 25 minutes.
