We made pear butter yesterday. I searched high and low for a good pear recipe that would work for us and really didn't find anything that fit the bill. I just did it my own way. I took several recipes and mixed them together to create two. The result? DELICIOUS. All it took was a
Victorio Strainer, a couple pots of boiling water, some sugar and spices, a couple crock pots, and a lots of arm muscle. I think I ran the strainer for several hours between all the pears for butter and the apples for applesauce.
A friend stopped by the other day to let me know that the pear tree at their parents was full (along with the apple) and that if I wanted to go pick, I could. After talking with Josh, we decided that we would go Sunday after church. After the kid and hubby picked several buckets (josh was making a bucket to feed the deer where we hunt), we sent home. We couldn't do anything with the pears or apples that day because we had to head out to the field to hunt. It is bow season and we take every opportunity that we can to get out and reconnect with nature. Oh, and fill our freezer of course if the good Lord lets us.
I invited my wonderful mom over to help me with both the apple sauce and the pear butter. It is much easier with several people. Josh works odd shifts and would not be on a shift to where he could help me until next week. So, not to risk the fruit getting too ripe, mom and I got to work. First we cut up the fruit. Apples you can half or quarter depending on their size. The pears we cutt he ends off and quartered. Then you throw them in a pot of boiling water for about 15 to 20 minutes until they are soft. Make sure that you wash the fruit before hand and cut out any bad parts. The strainer does an awesome job of keeping seeds, skin, etc out of the pulp, but it of course can not tell the difference in good or bad flesh.
You can see how messy my kitchen was. We had stuff strung everywhere! Mom would boil the fruit and then I would strain it. We did this for about an hour on each fruit. Which is not bad at all when you consider how much work it would be if you had to peal, core, and cut all of the fruit. The Victorio is my HERO. Not sure I would be able to can as much as I do without it.
This is what the strainer looks like from the top. Fruit (or whatever) goes in the white funnel. You push it down with the red "plunger" as you turn the crank. It then runs it through a screen. Out one side (you can see in the bowl) is the pulp and juice. Out the other (you can see at the top of the picture) is the skins, seeds, etc. By the way, my chickens LOVED the skins.
Once we got all of the fruit done it was time to transfer it to the crock pot. There are lots of pear butter recipes out there on the internet. If you want to check out my
canning Pinterest board you can find quite a few. The two that I used to create my own were the
slow cooker vanilla caramel one and just a regular old
pear butter recipe. It turned out vary tasty so I am sure that you can not really screw it up. Well, unless you dump a whole bottle of cloves in it or something...lol
After I let the pear butter cook on low in the crockpot over night, I added the rest of the ingredients, like the recipe called for (mainly because I had so much anyway, it wouldn't all fit without cooking down some!). I also noticed it wasn't as creamy as I like it so I took a hand blender and blended everything until it was a smooth creamy consistency. After all the flavors meshed and it became the right consistency, I started filling jars. One all twenty jars were filled I put them in the water bath for 11 minutes (adjusted for elevation).
They all sealed and were ready for me to take to the basement the next morning. BEAUTIFUL creamy color. Wonderful smell. LOVELY FALL! Of course I had to try some too. The kids and the husband all gave their seal of approval.
Go out and enjoy the smells, sounds, and crispness of Fall. It never sticks around long enough.
