Processing Pears

After getting a bushel of pears on Friday Oct. 2, I didn't really know how long it would be before they were ready to process. I've worked with peaches a lot, but not pears. Surprisingly to me, I needed to start working on them by Tuesday. I started out by doing what I usually do - the hot bath method in quart sized jars.



Thankfully, I was able to enlist JO's help for a little over an hour. This made it possible to get 20 qts done. It was so nice to have someone to chat with while we did the work - especially at the beginning while I was getting my stride. I also ended up doing some jam.
See http://www.food.com/recipe/orange-pear-jam-71486 for that recipe.

After doing pears from 12:30-4:30, I needed a nap! That's too much work for me. I know people who can for days. For some reason, the pears seemed harder than the peaches. Oh well. I took a break on Wednesday and tackled then them again. At that point, I could refrigerate the ones that were left.
I got the help of some family members on Thursday and today. We used recipes from the 1989 Better Homes & Gardens New Cookbook - making Poached Pears yesterday, then Pear Sauce and Pear Crisp tonight. Whew.

Thank goodness that's done.

Note: 11/1 - we've already had one of the jars of Pear Sauce - so good!