Pear Sauce and other harvest adventures

This is my favourite time of year - the days are warm and mellow, the garden harvest is at it's peak, fall fruits that I love (pears, plums, apples, local grapes) have come into season, evenings are perfect for bonfires and cozy woolen sweaters, and we've pulled out our warm quilt for sleeping again. This weekend saw all of the above - lots of garden harvest, some canning and preserving, some baking, a toasty fire, cozy clothes, and a few long fall walks...

We canned up the bushel of pears, and will be making pear pie (dutch pear pie) tomorrow with a handful of pears left over. Below is the pear sauce recipe - very easy (it can even be done over two days, making the sauce one day and canning it the next) - and no sugar is added. We eat it with homemade yogurt and granola for breakfast, or as a dessert.

It was also time to pack the crock pickles (mentioned on this blog a few months ago when we started the crock) into jars - the flavours are just perfect and that is the point to put the pickles plus brine into jars in the fridge for longer storage. I have a friend who also just keeps these jars of fermented goodness in a dark cool storage area (non-refrigerated). I may have to try that as our fridge is pretty full these days. Fermenting foods is so simple, and so rewarding (and so healthful)! Like the sourdough starter that I've been experimenting with, it seems difficult to go wrong with it. Today's sourdough starter turned into 7 loaves and a large pan of sourdough cinnamon buns, and a pizza crust - this sourdough recipe is very versatile. Between fermented foods, sprouting indoors, winter kale, and our coldframe/greenhouse salad greens, I plan to get us through the winter months with fresh vitamin-mineral-enzyme rich locally produced food. The foods we've canned or put in the freezer will be a bonus too!

Easy Pear or Apple Sauce

Bushel of pears or apples
7-12 large mason jars, rings and lids

1) Wash, cut and core pears (or apples), but do not need to peel.
2) Slowly simmer pears with a little water in large pot until they are extremely soft (several hours). Remember to stir occasionally.
3) Puree pears into thick sauce and heat sauce, continuing to stir often so it does not burn.
4) Meanwhile prepare canner by heating water and sterilizing jars.
5) When canner of water is boiling, fill hot jars with hot pear sauce to within 1/2 inch from top (i.e. 1/2 inch "headspace"). Wipe rims to remove any stickiness.
6) Heat canning lids according to instructions on package (usually 5 minutes in boiling water to soften the seals). Fasten onto the hot jars tightening slightly ("finger tight").
7) Set jars in hot canner, and when water returns to boiling, boil for 20 minutes (20 minutes for 500 ml jars).
8) Take jars out, let sit for 24 hours to cool. Check to see that all lids have sealed (concave if sealed). Label and store for future use!

100-Mile Desserts: Pear Upside Down Cake with Raw Whipped Cream

We been ordering late summer pears from Niagara through our buying club, and they have been sitting in bowls on the table looking gorgeous as they slowly ripened this past week. The plan was to make them into pear sauce for winter months, although we've also been enjoying fresh pears each day and the pile is dwindling. From my recent posts here it looks like I'm doing a lot of baking and not much else! We've had a number of guests in our B&B this past week and so I've had the chance to serve a variety of fresh baking to them, while also getting to photograph and blog about it :) I made a fresh pear upside down cake for our 100-mile dessert this week. The cake is usually a gingerbread variety, but I made it with local honey and maple syrup instead and it took on a darker almost pumpkin pie flavour. A friend dropped off a full 500 ml of fresh raw cream! This prompted me to bake this cake, so I could serve it with large dollops of this amazing fresh raw cream ontop (made into whipping cream, sweetened with local honey). Wow! Decadent! This recipe is a keeper - and it looks beautiful with slices of pears pressed into the dough once the cake is inverted. Here's the recipe (based on a similar one posted here about a year ago). This recipe is adapted from Simply in Season.

PEAR UPSIDE-DOWN CAKE

Syrup:

1/4 cup honey and/or maple syrup

1 Tbsp. butter

1 Tbsp. water

2-3 ripe pears, cored and sliced

Cake Batter:

1/3 cup butter

1 egg

1 1/2 cups local flour (spelt)

1 tsp. baking soda

1 cup honey

1/2 cup milk or buttermilk

1. Preheat oven to 350 F.

2. Prepare syrup by melting first four ingredients together in small saucepan. Stir until well combined. Pour into 8x12 glass baking dish.

3. Arrange sliced pears evenly on top of the syrup.

4. In medium sized mixing bowl, beat butter, sweetener and egg.

5. Mix all dry ingredients together in small bowl.

6. Add dry ingredients to creamed mixture alternately with milk.

7. Spoon cake batter over pears in baking dish.

8. Bake about 30 to 35 minutes or until knife inserted in cake comes out clean. Remove from oven, cool a few minutes and turn onto a platter.

9. Serve warm or cold with homemade yogurt or whipped cream (with raw milk if you can get it!).

Makes eight servings.

Peach jam...

We had a guest staying in our B&B who was interested in participating in all aspects of our homestead while she was here. She mentioned being interested in making jam, as she had done this only once, years ago, and had forgotten how to do it. She was interested in "job shadowing" me while I worked in the kitchen. We had a half bushel of peaches that were in prime condition for jam making, so we made two batches of jam today. One was a peach-pear jam, the other a peach-lavender jam (made by adding a half cup of lavender infused tea into the jam while it was boiling). Mmm, the kitchen smelled amazing, especially with the lavender tea steeping. The lavender seemed like an unusal addition at first, but imparted such a subtle flavour, it was really quite unique and added to the delicious "summer" taste. Making jam was a relaxing way to spend time with our guest as we had lots of time to chat while working!