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!

Jamming at the Fair

Howdy Jamsters,

I have been thinking a lot about what to can next...and whilst pondering my next great creation I stumbled upon the jam entries at my local fair.  Needless to say I was quite excited and began snapping pictures of the jams that sounded interesting.

The best of show was a very interesting combination of Orange Marmalade and Jack Daniels.  Woooweee, that would be a great way to get you day started!  That would put a zip...or sway in my step! 

It was so neat seeing all of these jamsters and inspired me to enter next year.  As of now I would probably enter the carrot cake or monkey butter jams.  The carrot cake it my favorite jam!  As far as my next jamming expedition, it's soon! Everything is unpacked and the kitchen it put together, now...to find a new recipe...

#5 Carrot Cake Jam

So I was thinking of doing another citrus marmalade/jelly but I am going to be in my home state of Florida in two weeks... My parents house just happens to be surrounded by orange groves and I am going to take great advantage of them!

When I was little my mom would hitch up the trailer to the lawnmower (yeehaw!) then my 2 sisters and I would climb into the trailer wearing nothing but long t-shirts and flip flops. We would then drive across our dirt road to pick all the oranges we could ever want!

My sisters and I had loads of adventures in those abandoned orange groves. Some of those included cleaning up an old trailer, spying on mafia men and running from bigfoot (he was always a few feet behind us). Now to the Carrot Cake Jam:

Alls you need:
1 1/2 cups of carrot, finely shaved
1 1/2 cups of pear, chopped and cored
1 3/4 cups of crushed pineapple, including juice
3 tablespoons of lemon juice
1 heaping teaspoon of cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon of ground nutmeg
3 tablespoons of pectin
6 cups of sugar

Makes 7 half-pints or 3 1/2 pints

First you are gonna dump the carrots, pears, pineapple, lemon juice, cinnamon, and nutmeg into a big mofo pot.  I actually added a little water too because I was nervous about how dry everything was, I think it helped.   Also, an easy way to grate carrots is to place the grater in a bowl slanted sideways, it prevents you from accidentally grating your knuckles off and contains all the carrot shavings.  It should look like the image below:

So bring this all to a simmer for about 10 mins.  Then you dump in the pectin and swirl it around, make everything be friends.  

Bring this all to a boil and dump in 6 cups of sugar, I know, I know, wah wah so much sugar, but look, you might eat 2 tablspoons of this delishousness a day, which equals like...a teeny bit of sugar, you are not going to eat a pint of it. sheesh.

Now bring this back to a bubbling mess and ladle into sterilized hot jars leaving about 1/4 inch headspace. Process in a water bath for at least 10 minutes remove and listen to all those beautiful pings.


Not only does this jam smell simply marvelous, it tastes just the same.  After having some of this you will feel all warm and gooey inside.  The jam fairies were with me on this one, because it is stellar!

Playing dress up.

So, if you have canned your own food then you know it's important to label and date it.  Sure you could just grab some masking tape and scribble the info on it but what if you want to give this as a gift? 

This week I've been working on creating some cute homemade labels AND you don't need a printer (Have you seen the prices of printer ink?!).

Alls you need is:

Some sticky labels (you could choose many different shapes and sizes).
Stamps
Ink pad/paints
Imagination

I decided to do a variety of designs on my labels.  I think the best stamps to use are small and can be repeated over and over.  I also tried to use lighter inks so my writing would show up over it. Oh, and sometimes you can find cute stamps on clearance at target, just check near their scrapbooking section.

So have a little fun and purty up them there jars!