Pear Vanilla Jam and Drought Conditions in California

As Fall slowly starts to change the air from humid and sticky to brisk and cool I can't help but think about all of the boutiful fruits that are being carefully preserved for the upcoming winter. I feel like canning has made me much more in tune with nature around me and aware of my environment.

As many in the U.S. know, California is in a critical state of drought. I beleive it is the worst it has been since the 1960's. A few months ago when we drove through the heartland of CA we noticed numerous signs in front of farms calling for water conservation. Now I don't live on a farm but I do like to buy direct from farmers and when that produce is in their peak so hearing so much about the drought worries me.

Now on to the Canning! I am going to kick this season off with one of my all time favorites Pear Vanilla Jam! I made this years ago when I first got into canning yet I never blogged it! It is one of those recipes that you can easily fall in love with and eat over and over.

Pears start to come into season in late Summer and last until January. I usually like my pears to be very firm otherwize the consistency can be a little grainy.

Pear Vanilla Jam
(Adapted from Food in Jars)

8 cups of pears (coarsly chopped). I used Bosc.
1 TSP high quality vanilla extract
1 TSP cinnamon
4 cups of sugar
1 package of liquid pectin. I use Ball
1/4 cup of water

Fill you canning pot with hot water. Place jars inside pot and sanitize on another burner. Combine chopped pears, sugar, cinnamon, vanilla extract and water into a large wide bottomed pot. Cook over medium heat until pear soften. Now grab your potato masher and take out some frustration on those pears. Mash em up!

Now add 1 package of Ball liquid pectin. Stir well and bring to a boil.

Now take a little water from your canning pot and put in bowl with the lids. You don't want to boil the lids with the jars because the wax seal will be useless. Just sanitize the lids in a bowl with a little boiling water.

Now remove the empty sanitized jars from the canning pot. Then ladle the Pear Vamilla Jam into the jars using a funnel. Look out for air bubbles and wipe the rims! Place lid on top, screw on the ring, and transfer back into the canning pot.

Return the canning pot to a rolling boil and then start timer for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes remove the jars and place on a nice soft towel to cool off! You should start hearing those glourious pings soon!

I love to eat this spooned onto vanilla ice cream or yogurt. As always if you have any questions just comment below and happy canning!

#4 Sweet sour, sweet sour, sweet sour Grapefruit Marmalade

Today I popped into a local supermarket to pick up a few items and had a strange encounter.  I had just gotten into the check out line and was picking up my favorite trashy magazine to skim (sometimes I even pick longer lines so I have more time to read).  Anyways a older man switches lines and just as I'm getting ready to drool over Heidi Klum's and Seals split he decides to start a conversation that went something like this:

old dude: The lady in the other line was using a whole bunch of coupons.  Ya know how much money you can save using coupons?

me: oh yea, a lot i bet.

old dude: yea, once i was at walmarts and this lady bought a whole buncha stuff, like carts full an I asked her how much she paid and she said 9 bucks!  She had 4 kids I don't have any kids, I'm single cause I don't want any women taking my money.

me: oh okay (trying to hide my wedding ring so he doesn't think I'm out to steal men's money).

old dude: you know, it's like 60/40. Women take 60%!

me: oh wow, i didn't know that.

Now, this is the best part of the whole conversation because the day before my husband and I were picking out a type of cereal.  I am a huge fan of Golden Oh's cause they don't get soggy and my husband likes the Special K, cause i think he feels healthy eating it, but it get uber soggy fast (ew).  Anyways I didn't get my Golden Oh's that day cause they were in the "kids section", next to Trix and Lucky Charms and now I'm supposed to eat like an adult and have soggy cereal **pouts**.  So to continue my story:

old dude: yea, hey have you tried this cereal? (holds up a box of Golden Oh's) it doesn't get soggy like cheerio's.

me: (trying not to sound too excited) "I completely agree"!

The conversation ended there cause then he started chatting up the cash register girl.  I was like "hey back off girl, this is my old chatty dude".  Then again he may have been on speed.

So let's get into this thing we call marmalade.  Firstly, it is an excellent word that sounds like what it means.  When I hear marmalade I think lemonade, both are sweet but have a sour pucker to it. Oh and  while making this delightful marm, you must listen to this song:

Ingredients:
Adapted from The Cosmic Cowgirl.

5 Florida Ruby Reds
2 Tablespoons Lemon Juice
6 cups of sugar
2 vanilla beans

Directions:
Halve grapefruits and place in a huge mofo of a pot.  Cover with water and bring to a boil.  Reduce to a simmer for 2 hours. This makes the grapefruit rind nice and soft and I believe draws out some of the bitterness. Make sure you add water if water level gets critical (ie, grapefruits are not covered).  Drain water. They will look like this:

Soggy grapefruit= good, soggy cereal=bad

Then chunk up the grapefruit and remove seeds.  Put rinds/pith (white part)/flesh all into a food chopper upper. Chopper Up until it's as smooth/chunky as you want. See how chunky mine is?

Now you take all that chunky grapefruit and put it back in the huge mofo pot, along with 8 cups of sugar, 2 vanilla beans, and 2 tablespoons of lemon juice.  It'll look something like this:

Now stir it all together an make everything be friends with each other.  Then I let it simmer for about 30 minutes while stirring occasionally.  Once it is to the consistency and sweetness, to your little hearts content, take your sterilized jars fill em up and then process in a water bath for 15 minutes. 

I think I used really big grapefruits or something.

You checkin out my Vanilla Bean?

This marm is absolutely wonderful, especially if you like grapefruit.  Actually, if you don't like the taste of grapefruit you probably won't enjoy this, which is quite a shame.  I just ate some spread on toast with a bit of cream cheese, and it was eye-crossing good.  Leaves a great bitter/sour aftertaste.