This weekend, we picked pears at Dick and Verna's house on Temperance Street. They have a big old pear tree that produces oodles of fruit. We canned them on Sunday and Tuesday evenings (12 jars in all). John helped peel and chop the pears while I sterilized the jars and made a light sugar syrup.
The recipe for the sugar syrup comes from the canning Bible "Stocking Up" --- 1 cup sugar, 1 cup honey and 4 cups water. Heat the syrup so the sugar and honey disolve. Simmer the chopped pears in the syrup until they are just soft. Scoop the pears into the jars and top up with the syrup, tapping to release air bubbles. Boil the sealed jars in water for 20 minutes.
7 comments:
this comment is regarding your Eat Local, Think Global speaking engagement in Moose Jaw... you said you'll be there on Oct. 30, will you also be there on Sept. 30 as the MJPL states, or is there a discrepency?
My mistake! The talk in Moose Jaw is Tues, Sept. 30.
Very cool! I am somewhat surprised to see local pears! If only my wife would not argue about putting a pear tree instead of the ugly spruce...
I'm with you on that,JJ. I think the city should be planting fruit trees in parks and boulevards. I was at a home in Saskatoon recently where the nicely-trimmed hedge was a sour cherry bush. The birds loved it!
There are organizations in other cities that coordinate the gleaning of fruit from trees the owners can't use. The Richmond Fruit Tree Project and the Vancouver Fruit Tree Sharing Project are two examples -- each has volunteers who pick thousands of pounds of fruit every year for food banks and community kitchens in their communities. Every city should have a program like this -- and a program to plant more fruit trees in public spaces!
Thanks Chris. I'm going to look into those programs. Maybe we could get something going in Saskatoon before the next fruit season.
I'd be all up for helping with a community fruit tree thing.
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