Pear-a-phernalia

My parents have always had an abundance of produce growing in their backyard: if not from their fruit trees, then from their freakishly successful garden.  This year's pear crop proved to be pear-a-mount. 

Pears are a LOT of work.  Each one needs to be peeled, cored, and sliced into desirable portions.  They also need to be processed with a sense of urgency to avoid over-ripening.  After I brought these home, I surfed the web for all possible recipes and settled on making Pear Butter and Pear Bread.

Once the pears are prepped, the rest is easy.  For the pear butter, I filled the crockpot to the brim with pears and set it on low for 14 hours.  I didn't measure anything, because of an aversion I have to following instructions.  Once that was done, I added 1/2 cup of sugar, 1 tsp cinnamon, and 1/4 tsp of nutmeg.  It turned out just right.

I found a delicious recipe for pear bread on allrecipes.com.  Delightful.

I ended up freezing the pear butter and eating all the bread.  Life is good.

Banana Peppers

I don't have much of a green thumb, but having grown up with a garden, I am inclined to give it my best shot.

This last weekend I collected a few handfuls of banana peppers from the two little plants I have growing in an old metal washtub out front of my house.  They're competing for "Most Leafy" with the bell pepper plant and the rosemary, all squished in the middle.

After perusing the interwebs for some canning ideas, I decided I would just do the usual: decipher the important principles, ratios, etc, and do my own thing.  

I sliced the peppers into rings, first removing the stems.  Meanwhile, I'm sterilizing the lids and rings in some simmering water on the stove.  Since the packed jars will be processing in a hot water bath for at least 10 minutes, there's no need for me to sterilize those.  I just made sure they were nice and clean.  

Then I combined my vinegar, sugar, salt, and water in my saucier and brought it to a boil.  I packed the pepper rings in the jars, and filled them with my vinegar concoction, leaving 1/4 inch of head space.

On go the lids and rings and then a nice 10 minute bath in boiling water.

I let them sit on the counter while I finished baking some banana bread.

All three tiny jars sealed up nicely, and they now sit on my shelf to finish the pickling process.  In two weeks,  they'll be ready to consume!  I'll let you know how they taste.

So, I've started a blog. I've considered doing this for quite awhile, but was apprehensive about whether or not I'm the blogging type. With some encouragement that it "doesn't have to be perfect," and reassurances that I can "change the title if I end up hating it," I gathered enough gumption to make it happen. Thanks, Amy, for being my biggest cheerleader in starting this up. Now its your turn, Mrs. Clawson!