Canned Tomatoe's, Cinnamon Pears & Sugar free Pears
Lot's and lot's of canned Pears!
The process of "Hot water bathing"
We were blessed with a trip to go pick free pears! A good friend of ours has an elderly neighbor with a 100 year old pear tree in her yard. She called and said we could go pear picking with them because she knew I'd been wanting to learn how to "hot water bath high acid foods" and "pressure cook" with the pressure cooker we'd been blessed with awhile back. So pear picking we went!
We took a medium ladder with us and all the kids took turns on the ladder picking what we couldn't reach. I made the mistake of being in the wrong place at the right time and got hit in the head and mouth while standing under the tree. Pears are a lot like baseballs when falling from the tree! I had a "Angelina Jolene" lip for awhile which everyone thought was funny.
Katelyn & Denise
We picked and picked and only manged to reach about half the pears. The tree was so old that we didn't want to risk damaging the branches anymore then the weight of the pears already had. We ended up coming home with what I would estimate to be easily 150 plus pounds of pears. My fingers are stained brown and shredded from all the peeling, paring and quartering! I finally appealed to my hubby for help. He turned out to have the ability to peel something liken to a wood chipper shredding wood so he was hired!!!! Katelyn tried to help but ended cutting her finger. Nathaniel peeled about 20 and was done, Keegan had no interest whatsoever.
So now I picked up about 80 lbs of apples, still have 15 lbs of tomatoes and maybe another 40 lbs on the pears left to play with on Tuesday. My hubby was gone when I did the actual canning and when he came home and saw all my yummy jars he told me he was pretty proud of me, that felt really good. I was pretty proud of myself. It feels good to know that if you need to preserve food for your family that you have that knowledge. It feels very "Susie Homemaker" to learn all this and it was a great experience that I will hopefully share with my grandkids someday.
Sherri <><
So now I picked up about 80 lbs of apples, still have 15 lbs of tomatoes and maybe another 40 lbs on the pears left to play with on Tuesday. My hubby was gone when I did the actual canning and when he came home and saw all my yummy jars he told me he was pretty proud of me, that felt really good. I was pretty proud of myself. It feels good to know that if you need to preserve food for your family that you have that knowledge. It feels very "Susie Homemaker" to learn all this and it was a great experience that I will hopefully share with my grandkids someday.
Sherri <><
