Fruits of Today’s Labor and Pear Jam

Today was a busy day for canning!

For some reason, our garden did not produce a single green bean this year; beautiful plants, but no beans.  This morning, my dad called and said my grandfather had about 3 rows that just came on if we wanted to come pick them.  We jumped at it of course.

Here is Buck with his granddaddy-my dad:

Meanwhile, we had a bushel of pears freshly picked off my folks’ tree. So, I decided to give jam making a try.  Since I only had one package of pectin, I was only able to can two half-pints and one pint of jam, but am very pleased with how they turned out.  I’ll share the directions for pear jam at the end of this post.

We also canned 15 pints of potatoes, another first for us, as well as two pints of the remaining pears.

  The pears and potatoes look very similar in the jars, so I made sure I labeled the lids!    Yep, those are some of the green beans on top.  It is now 10:38 pm as I write this, so they will have to wait to be canned tomorrow.  It has been a long and tiresome day, the longest process being all the peeling and quartering of potatoes and pears, but what a great feeling!

Here’s the pear jam recipe I promised:

Begin with clean jars, rings and new lids.  Let the lids sit in boiling water.  Heat the jars by either placing them in a big pot of boiling water or do as I did and set them on a cookie sheet in the oven. It is important your jars are hot when you go to fill them because your jam mixture will be hot.

Wash and peal pears.  Chop them very finely until you have 4 Cups.

Place pears and 2 TBSP of lemon juice in a 6-8 quart sauce pan.  Slowly add one packet of fruit pectin ( I used Ball Original Fruit Pectin). Once it is boiling hard enough to not be affected when you stir it, add 5 Cups of sugar. Boil hard for one minute. Remove from heat.

Spoon or ladle jam mixture into hot jars.  Apply lids and rings.  Process in a hot water bath for 10 minutes.  *A hot water bath is simply a big pot with enough water to cover 1-2 inches over lid of jars, and cover the pot. Bring it to a boil then begin timing the processing.

     My pear jam has chunks of fruit.  If you want to decrease the chunks, then mash them with a potato masher before cooking.

I’d love to know what YOU have been up to in the kitchen! Leave me a comment!