"United we bargain, divided we beg."

Monday, September 7, 2009

The Parson's Pears




These aren't our pears. I mean, they didn't come off of our antique pear tree, which inexplicably produced only about a dozen pears this year, instead of the hundreds it popped out with last year. These are the pastor's pears which I picked from the pear tree in the parsonage (say thatten times fast.). She said to take as many pears as I wanted, so I did. The container they are in is a half-barrel, so you can see that's a lot of pears.

I realized at some point afterwards that I didn't actually want to process that many pears - pears have a short window, once off the tree they ripen quickly, and ten minutes after that they are nothing but fragrant mush. So I gave away about twenty-five or so, and have about forty left to process today or tomorrow, whenever they seem perfect.

I need to scour my cookbooks for pear recipes. I used to make a fantastic pear-ginger-sour cream cake with walnuts. Wonder if pecans and yogurt would work just as well? We'll find out. Then I remember from last year a delicious kind of pear pie with cheddar cheese that my Aunt Christie sent me a recipe for. I'll certainly make that again. Hope wants to dehydrate some. And I want to can some in syrup - which I've never done before. For some reason I'm candy impaired, I can't ever make anything that involves melting sugar come out correctly. And yes, I have a candy thermometer.

Ooh, candied dried pears!

7 comments:

Tonia said...

I used a Honey syrup. Its one cup of honey and 4 cups of very hot water. Wash, rinse,peel and cut up pears directly into it. You can freeze or can like normal. They dont turn brown either. I didnt have time to freze them or can so i just put them in a jar in the fridge and they have disappeared.

Aimee said...

Thanks Tonia! That's a great idea. I have lots of delicious local honey.

Aimee said...

Thanks Tonia! That's a great idea. I have lots of delicious local honey.

Q said...

These look delicious...
I like the honey syrup idea from Tonia too.
I shall try it!
Sherry

Olive said...

A little citrus (juice and zest) in the syrup is delicious in preserved (aussie term for US 'canning')pears. Lemon, orange or lemonade fruit all work well.

Anonymous said...

Pear cider = perry

Jerry said...

Good lord my mouth is watering.