Millions of Pears, Pears for Me!

I have been getting busy with pears lately.  Delicious little pears from my pear tree!  Last year all of my pears went to waste.  I didn't realize how quickly they would ripen and so they all ended up falling off my tree into a mushy pile... which the wasps loved!  This year I was ready for them though!  Once I saw one turning yellow I knew they all must be close to being ripe so I picked them all off the tree to let them ripen inside, like you're supposed to.  As they ripened I put them in the fridge so they didn't get too ripe, and after a couple of days they were all ready for canning! 
I have been slowly getting into canning things.  Two years ago I made dill pickles and bread and butter pickles, and then last year I made pickled beets.  It's a lot of work, and takes some time, especially when you don't know what you're doing.  But once you get the basics down it gets much easier.  The most time-consuming part is prepping the vegetable.  In this case, peeling pears.  I peeled pears for over an hour one day and another 45 minutes the next.  My hand was so cramped up!  But even with all the work, it is such a satisfying thing to do.  And the canned food lasts for a year, so you get to enjoy your hard work for so long.  Home canned food also makes for beautiful gifts, some people are amazed at the fact that "you made pickles?!!", people definately appreciate the hard work!
So with all the pears I picked this year I was able to make 7 half-quart jars of sliced pears and 4 quarter-quart jars of pear butter.  These are most of the pears that I picked...

To can your own pears all you need for special equipment are some jars with rings and new lids.  (You need to have unused lids so that the wax seal will still work.)  There are special pots you can buy for processing the jars in, I bought one this year at Canadian Tire for $15.00, but all you really need is a tall pot that your jars can sit in and be completely covered with water.  And this is how you can pears:

1. Peel, core, and quarter pears.  Keep them in a bowl with water and lemon juice to keep them from turning brown while you keep peeling.
2. Make a syrup to cook your pears in.  I like a light syrup, which is 1 cup of sugar per 3 cups of water.  Make however much syrup you think you will need for the amount of pears that you have.  Slowly cook the water and sugar on a low setting until the sugar dissolves, and then bring it to a boil.
3.  Add the pears to the boiling syrup and leave them in it until it comes to a boil again.
4.  Use a slotted spoon to fill hot, sterilized jars* with the pears.  Use a ladle to cover the pears with the syrup, leaving a 1/2" of space at the top of the jar.  Take a butter knife and stir the pears a bit to make sure there are no air bubbles.
5.  Take a clean, damp cloth and wipe the rim of each jar, and then place a hot, sterilized lid* on each jar, followed by the ring which you don't need to over tighten.  Twist it on until it just tightens.
6.  Process your jars by placing them upright into a large pot of boiling water, the jars should be completely covered.  Let the jars boil for 20 minutes, more if you are at a high altitude. (If you don't have a canning pot with a rack then you can place a tea towel at the bottom of the pot so that the jars don't bounce around too much.)
7.  Remove the jars and let cool for 24 hours without moving.  Place them on a cookie sheet lined with a clean tea towel.  Then store them in a cool, dark place for up to a year.
*To sterilize the jars I put them and the rings in the pot I will also be processing them in and then cover them with water and bring to a boil.  I put the lids in a small bowl and cover them with boiling water.  When I am ready to use the jars I lift them out with tongs (use a jar lifter if you have one!), but leave the water in the pot so that it is already boiling when it comes time to do the processing.

This is how I set everything up to get ready for canning:

These are the pears being processed:

And the final product!:

The Bacon Experiment

Bacon is delicious. Candied bacon, even more delicious.  I had never eaten it before, but since first hearing about candied bacon a couple of years ago I had always wanted to make it.  So when my hubby started frying up some bacon last night for our Caesar salad I decided to finally try my hand at baking up some deliciousness.  I looked at a few different recipes for it, some saying to bake it on a cooling rack over top of a baking sheet, others saying to bake it right on the sheet.  I experimented with both ways.  I found that when I cooked it on the rack all the brown sugar just melted off with the bacon grease, but cooking it solely on the baking sheet wasn't letting it get crispy enough.  What I finally ended up doing was cooking it on the sheet, and then when it was nice and caramelized I transferred it onto some parchment paper to crisp it up.  It was so good, I ate a few pieces by themselves and then later on I crumbled it up to put on top of creme brulee ice cream along with real maple syrup.  Now that was an amazing dessert!

This is how I made my candied bacon:

Take as many pieces of bacon as you would like to candy and place on a foil-lined baking sheet.  Generously rub each bacon strip with brown sugar.  Place in a 350 degree oven and bake for 7 minutes.  Remove from oven and turn over bacon strips, rubbing brown sugar on the other side.  Bake for another 7 minutes.  Remove the bacon from the tinfoil and place on parchment paper, broil on high for about 2 minutes a side.  The bacon should be nice and sticky and brown.  Put the bacon a plate and as the sugar cools it will get nice and crispy.  Mmmmm, crispy.

Homemade Pesto...it's worth making it!

Sometimes it's cheaper (and easier!) to just buy something than it is to make it.  That's how I feel about pasta sauces, among other things.  But when I went to the farmer's market last week and saw a huge amount of fresh basil for only $2, homemade pesto was all that was on my mind.  I have always loved pesto, and can remember begging my mom for "green spaghetti" when I was a child.  So I looked at a few recipes online and finally settled on two recipes to follow, and then went to buy the ingredients.  Since you can buy a jar of pesto for about $4.50 at the grocery store, I wanted to keep my cost as low as possible.  All I needed to buy was fresh Parmesan cheese and pine nuts or walnuts.  I went with walnuts because they were way cheaper than the pine nuts, and I knew they would taste just as good.  And then I made pesto for the first time!  It was extremely easy to make (the 'hardest' part was getting the leaves off the stalk and washing them!) and turned out really well.  It was more expensive to make it at home, especially since my grocery store currently has it on sale for $1.99, but it was much more satisfying to say I made it myself.  And it was delicious!  I had it with linguine, but I plan on making pizza with it later on this week.  Here's the recipe I used if you would like to make your own 'green spaghetti':

Basil Pesto:

2 1/2 cups fresh basil leaves (packed), washed and dried
1/3 cup pine nuts or chopped walnuts
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil, divided
3 cloves garlic, minced
salt and pepper to taste

In a food processor, add the basil, nuts, and Parmesan cheese.  Pulse until well chopped, add the garlic.  While the processor is on a low setting, slowly pour in 1/3 cup of olive oil, then season with salt and pepper.  Pour pesto into a jar and top with remaining olive oil.  Keep in fridge for up to 4 days or freeze for later use.

I divided the pesto into 4 small containers, so I could freeze some and keep some out.  Don't worry if the top of the pesto turns dark brown or black, it's just the air's effect on the basil, the olive oil on top should keep it greener.  Enjoy!

An Introduction

I am exceptionally, amazingly, awesomely great at one thing.  Eating.  It just comes naturally to me.  I have a love/love relationship with food.  I see it, I eat it, I love it.  Well, except mushrooms...I'm hoping that they'll grow on me, but instead they just keep growing on poo and I just keep not liking them.  Now, I don't consider myself a foodie by any means.  My tastes aren't so discernable, and I can enjoy a tasty bowl of KD just as much as a filet mignon.  But I would prefer the filet mignon, yes, I would prefer it right now in fact.  The wallet is telling me I'll be eating KD though.  When I dream about winning the lottery, it's not the houses and cars I'm picturing, but being able to eat at restaurants every single day, trying new foods, and old foods in new ways.  But since I have not yet had the pleasure of winning the lottery I will have to make do with cooking my own delicious meals, which isn't so bad.  I enjoy cooking, and I love trying out new recipes.  Sometimes they exceed my expectations, and sometimes they don't.  Sometimes they just need to be tweaked to get it right.  This blog will be all about the recipes I try and how I think they fared.  I'm looking forward to sharing my cooking experiences with you!