Preserve Your Excess Fruit-Pears

Max, I would love to try your New York Uncooked Relish, but with our drought there are NO green tomatoes in the garden. There won’t be any to try and save for Thanksgiving.

You know, that recipe must have been pretty old as it did not mention killing the relish with a Boiling Water Bath. Your recipe doesn’t say so, but I will bet that originally the frugal housewife didn’t even put it in jars. It probably sat in a big brown stoneware crock in the basement.

You lucky person with bushels of pears. Have you ever made Pear Butter? It is obviously a first cousin to Apple Butter, and some people like it better. I actually do not leave the cores in for the first cooking as they are a mess to remove, but do leave the peels on as they add a lot of taste. And, I do not seal with paraffin. I use hot sterilized pint and half-pint jars and seal them like they are pickles. Try it, you’ll like it.

Pear Butter:

2 pecks ripe pears
½ cup of white sugar to each cup of pear pulp
½ teaspoon cinnamon to each 3 cups pulp

Wash pears, but do not peel or core. Slice. Place in large pan with a small amount of water. Cook until very soft which will be 15 to 30 minutes.

Run pulp through a strainer or food mill to catch the peels and seeds. Measure the pulp and return to kettle. Add the sugar and cinnamon according to the amount of pulp. Cook until very thick, stirring frequently to prevent burning. Watch like a hawk!! Pour into sterilized jelly jars and seal with paraffin while hot.

Yields 12 small jelly sized jars.

Preserve Your Excess Fruit and Crab Apples

Spiced Pears used to appear on our winter tables too. More like a relish than a desert and often served on a platter around a pork roast.

Thanksgiving Turkey and the Christmas Goose wouldn’t be complete without some of my spiced Pickled Crab Apples. I can’t say as I really like to eat them, but they are sooo pretty. There is nothing like a ring of deep red Crab Apples and fresh Sage to make a bird look festive.

There are no crab apples, or any apples that matter here, due to our late freeze and the long dry summer, so it is fortunate that I put up a lot of them last year. People say that pickles and preserves should not be eaten after a year, but that is a lot of bunk. Kept in a cool, cry place preserves and catsups will last several years. It is true that some pickles lose their crispness after a few months. Dill Pickles being the ones to get limp first.

My original recipe did not call for red food coloring, but I always use it as our crab apples are more yellow than red. With the red food coloring, not only is the skin a deep red, but the apple flesh becomes red as well.

To keep the skins from bursting open, I take a thick needle and prick the skin of each apple several times, and I watch the pot like a hawk. You want the apples to be very firm. I just noticed that the recipe doesn’t say a thing about preparing the apples in the first place. I suppose in the old days everybody knew what to do? Anyways, you wash the fruit well, and leave the stems on, but do remove leave leaves.

Spiced Pickled Crab Apples:

1 quart white vinegar
1 cup water
1 quarts white sugar
1 tablespoon cloves
1 teaspoon mace
1 teaspoon allspice
½ to ¾ gallon red crab apples
Red Food Coloring (Optional) (Consider if crab apples are not bright red)

Combine vinegar, water, sugar and spices and red food coloring if desired in a large non-aluminum pan. Bring to a boil and then cool to room temperature. Add the washed whole crabapples and carefully bring up the heat so the apples do not burst. Cook until barely tender. Let the apples stand in syrup overnight.

Pack the cold apples and syrup in sterilized jars filling to within ½ inch of the top of the jar. Process jars in a water bath for 20 minutes.

Yields 5 pints.

Preserve Your Excess Fruit and Pears

Erma dear, I was just waiting to see how long it would be before you hauled out your famous Brandied Peaches. Now, I will admit that one of those peach halves over a scoop of vanilla ice cream is a bit of heaven, and you are right, don’t eat a Brandied Peach and drive.

We suddenly have a big crop of pears so I have been ferrating out some old preserving recipes. Isn’t it funny how pears only seem to hit every couple of years? Anyway, this is a very easy and dependable recipe for Spiced Seckel Pears. Like your Brandied Peaches, these are nice on winter evenings when the wind howls and summer is far away.

Spiced Seckel Pears:

7 pounds firm Seckel pears
2 teaspoons whole cloves
3 pounds light brown sugar
3 cups white vinegar

Wash and peel the pears, leaving them whole with stem attached. In non-aluminum fairly large saucepan bring the brown sugar, cloves and vinegar to a gentle boil. Cook for 5 minutes.

Place the whole pears in the syrup and simmer until they can be pierced with a large cooking fork. Remove the pan from the heat and set for 12 to 24 hours.

The following morning place the pears on a large platter, and strain the syrup. Clean the saucepan and then return the syrup to the saucepan, bring to a boil, and boil for 5 minutes.

Return the pears to the pan and bring to a boil. Have ready 10 pint jars sterilized and hot.

Fill the jars and carefully press the pears under the shoulders of the jars. Fill jars with remaining boiling liquid. Wipe lids carefully and seal jars.

Makes 10 pints.

Coconut Chicken with Fresh Fruit

Max dear, I love your Hawaiian recipes. Only someone like you would have taken the dream Hawaiian vacation and spent it prowling through museums and collecting recipes. Did you actually ever get to the beach?

Let me guess, you did not eat a single meal at the hotel or chain food restaurants, did you? Tell me, do you think this Coconut Chicken with Fresh Fruit is REAL Hawaiian food? All I know is that it came from someone who lived in Maui for a number of years.

Coconut Chicken with Fresh Fruit:

1/3 cup coconut
2 tablespoons butter
8 large boneless chicken breasts, skinned
1 tablespoons fresh ginger
1/3 teaspoon salt
1 cup whipping cream
3 large ripe bananas, quartered
1 ripe papaya, peeled, seeded, halved and sliced
3 limes, cut into wedges

Toast the coconut in a 300 degree oven for 10 minutes on a cookie sheet like the FarberWare Nonstick Baking Sheet. Set aside to cool.

Chop the fresh ginger very fine in a food processor, or if fresh ginger is not available, substitute 3/4 teaspoon ground ginger.

In a large skillet with a cover like the KitchenAid Covered Stir-Fry Pan, brown the chicken breasts in the butter. Sprinkle on the ginger, 3 tablespoons of the toasted coconut, and salt over the chicken. Add the cream, cover and cook over medium heat for 12 minutes until the chicken is done.

Place the chicken on a large platter and arrange the fruit around it. Spoon the sauce over the chicken and sprinkle on the remaining toasted coconut. Garnish with limes to be squeezed over the chicken and fruit.

Serves 8.