The Pear Necessities

Awhile back, I committed to using the produce that my backyard is yielding. I seem, unfortunately, to have lost control of it. My pear tree in particular seems to be producing more pears just as quickly as I pick the existing pears.

Perhaps that’s just my imagination. I spent one full afternoon a week-and-a-half ago picking all the pears that were within my reach. I had one of those long pickers that is supposed to enable me to reach the pears at the very top of the tree. No such luck. I was able to get most of the pears that were ready to be picked on about the bottom three-fourths of the tree. There, looming at the very top, are pears practically sticking their tongues out at me that I will never be able to reach. A feast for the squirrels, though, as I noted, they seem to take one bite and commence to throw them onto the ground beneath the tree. Little devils.

Oh well. Considering that I have lived in this house for 18 years and have never harvested one single pear, I should be happy with the ones I picked.

At any rate, I did as the websites instructed. I placed them in two boxes and put them in my cool basement to ripen, and promptly forgot about them. However, this morning I bolted up in bed and cried, “Eureka!” Well, I didn’t actually do that, as it would probably have given my husband a heart attack, but I did remember that there were two boxes of pears sitting in my basement.

I went downstairs and carefully peeked into the box. Just as I had been promised, the pears had ripened. Well, most had ripened. A few had totally rotted, and a few hadn’t done much of anything. But most were a golden color with specks of brown, and just gave a bit to my touch.

So this afternoon I spent several hours making Caramel Spice Pear Butter using a recipe that I found in my home canning magazine. You core seven pounds of pears, dice them into pieces, add water and cook the bejesus out of them. In the meantime, you magically turn sugar into caramel.

Seriously, it does seem sort of magical. As I stirred and stirred, before my very eyes, a cup-and-a-half of plain white sugar turned into deep, rich caramel. Yum.

Using my food processor (what did I ever do without it?), I pulverized the cooked pears, and then added the caramel to them, along with cinnamon, ginger, and cloves. I let the mixture cook until it was a thick, gooey pot of deliciousness, and then I filled eight jelly jars with the pear butter, and set them in some boiling water to process.

Keeping with the pear’s history of apparently reproducing right before my very eyes, it almost appeared that I hadn’t made a dent in the pot. There was still so much pear butter remaining. So I filled up two more jars and a plastic container. Those I didn’t process, so I will have to share the excess with my friends, family, and neighbors.

The taste? Well, just imagine the sweetness of pears coupled with the rich creaminess of caramel, and add a touch of spiciness from the cinnamon, ginger and cloves. Sheer yumminess that will grace my toast tomorrow (and many tomorrows after that.

Next up -- the apples!