The grocery store had a great sale on pears that were getting overripe. They were putting them in brown bags and selling the whole bag for $1.50. Each bag was about 4 lbs and I I bought 4 of them. (Is this starting to sound like a 3rd grade story problem?) So yes, I spent 6 bucks and this is what I did with my approximately 16 lbs of pears:
Not the pickles. My cousin made those from her overabundant cucumber crop and brought them when she came to dinner a couple weeks ago. I was very impressed and inspired, as with another cousin, who canned pears and pearsauce the week before. (Wow, that's a long caption)Canning fruits and vegetables each fall was something I grew up doing, coming home from school in early autumn to find a sink full of cold water, bobbing with ripened, blanched fruit to peel. Sometimes I'd help with the coring or slipping the produce inside the jars. I'd bail out of the project after a half hour or so, leaving my mother to deal with the mess and another sibling to step in. This time I got to assume my mother's role, which always fills me with respect for her dedication to such projects. Matthew helped me out with the peeling, although we turned into a very sticky mess. I do not recommend mopping the kitchen floor the day before you embark on such a project, like I did.
It turned out to be a lot more work than I remembered. Besides standing on the hard tile for hours upon end, filling the August kitchen with steam, and getting mushy sticky pear substance over every last inch of my body, I didn't realize that I also nearly poisoned myself and the boys in the process. I don't have a canner, just a tall stockpot. I put a bunch of butter knives on the bottom to serve as a rack and put the jars inside, filling it with water up to the neck. However, that was about a millimeter from the top of the pot, so when it came to a boil, of course water spilled over and it extinguished the gas fire on the stove. At this point, I was collapsed on the couch reading stories whilst waiting for the sealing process, so it wasn't until I developed an acute headache and noticed the strong smell of natural gas that I realized this. It took awhile to get it all done, but it sure gave me a feeling of accomplishment. We made some delicious pearsauce and sploosh (spiced peach/pear mush) with the leftovers.
It turned out to be a lot more work than I remembered. Besides standing on the hard tile for hours upon end, filling the August kitchen with steam, and getting mushy sticky pear substance over every last inch of my body, I didn't realize that I also nearly poisoned myself and the boys in the process. I don't have a canner, just a tall stockpot. I put a bunch of butter knives on the bottom to serve as a rack and put the jars inside, filling it with water up to the neck. However, that was about a millimeter from the top of the pot, so when it came to a boil, of course water spilled over and it extinguished the gas fire on the stove. At this point, I was collapsed on the couch reading stories whilst waiting for the sealing process, so it wasn't until I developed an acute headache and noticed the strong smell of natural gas that I realized this. It took awhile to get it all done, but it sure gave me a feeling of accomplishment. We made some delicious pearsauce and sploosh (spiced peach/pear mush) with the leftovers.
And as for the math... I try not to think about it. An 8 oz can of pears is about $1. I would have spent about $14 for this amount of canned pears. Subtracting my $6 of produce cost, I made about $4 an hour- not counting cleanup. But these will be much yummier.
3 comments:
Yeah, it was a lot of work--but did you know you can actually slip the skins of pears by blanching them 30 seconds first? Goes SO much faster. I ended up with sixteen quarts from my free tree, plus two batches of jam, so it was worth it in the end. I guess I probably endured about 5-6 hours of labor for that....but they are SO SO SO much yummier!! Congrats and way to go. We are so domestic :).
I can't remember barely anything about the actual canning process, just standing over the sink trying to get the peels off of fruits. Canning cherries was the worst, pitting all those cherries. It'll be a while before we find enough produce to can.
Yeah, it'll be a while before I can can, too. Not the Can Can, just can. After all, I can Can Can.
So you almost poisoned yourselves with the natural gas leaking? Is there a way to do it from the canning itself, do you know?
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