No Canning Today...

 

My sister, Diana surprised us with a visit yesterday. She arrived right after Handsome helped me unload nearly two bushels of pears from the tractor to carry them into the farmhouse. I had already started setting up my canning supplies, and washed the pears for peeling and cutting.

After watching me hand peel the pears for about three pounds-worth, Di asked why I wasn't using my Pampered Chef tool called the "apple peeler, corer, slicer". Handsome calls it my potato lathe. When I explained that I didn't want to use it to core the pears because of their sometimes irregular shape, she informed me that that feature can be disengaged. (She's my Pampered Chef consultant, too.) Knowing that I, too, store seldom used appliances and tools in the basement - just as she does - she said, "Go downstairs and bring it back up. I'll show you how to do it." 

Well, I fairly pranced downstairs to get it, and after turning one screw, and turning the corer out of the way, I loaded up my first pear, peeled it and was perfectly giddy. This was going to save me a lot of time and sore thumbs. So, I got to cranking the pears. Di peeled off anything that was left from the "lathe", and Handsome cut up the pears and tossed them into a bowl with citric acid and water to keep the pears from turning brown. We got our system going and before we knew it, we'd prepared twenty pounds for canning.

Di had to leave shortly after we got all those pears peeled, but I kept going by making the light syrup and adding pears in small loads. Once they were cooked in the syrup for five minutes, I filled the jars and then put them into my electric water bath canner. I could only get eight or nine jars in at a time, but they only needed to process for twenty five minutes, so I just ran two loads in the canner.

The result is this beautiful array of finished pears for the pantry...and I still have 3/4 of a bushel yet to do. As it's supposed to get into the high 90s today, canning will not be on my agenda. As Tag told you, he and I will be attending Handsome's last concert this evening. Di is going to join us, along with some of my nieces and nephews. We're all looking forward to it. You'll read all about it next week when you get to see it from his ground level point of view. (hee hee, Tag. I saw your 'old people' joke yesterday!)

Time to check the garden, take care of the kitties, and then figure out how to keep cool if it's really going to be that hot today. I may need to spend some of that time in the studio, enjoying a little craft therapy. What are you doing today?