The Fruit of My Labor

 It is canning time again. This time it is pears. I found a tutorial here that had nice pictures if you want to do your own (on my computer it looked like it was a blank page- I had to scroll clear down to find the instructions). So far, I am up to 3 dozen half pints and 17 pints. I haven't ever done pints before, but my husband wanted slices, and they just weren't fitting too well in the smaller jars. I still have about 20 lbs. of pears left that are still on the hard side. Now I just have to wait for them to ripen and decide what to do with them.

Last year after I had done all of my pears, some friends were talking about the tastiest jam- a pear raspberry. I swore I would try it this year. I was unable to get the actual recipe (yet), but the closest I was able to come up with came from here.

I only used half the sugar, and it is still on the sweet side. I think I would cut the sugar down to 1 cup if I do it again. It looks really pretty. I was able to get 7 half pints from 1 batch.

*UPDATE*
The "Official" Raspberry Pear Jam Recipe
5 cups Pear Sauce
1 cup Raspberries
2 cups Sugar (or 1 1/2 if you prefer)
1 large box Raspberry Jello

Boil pear sauce, raspberries, and sugar for 20 minutes. Add box of jello and cook until fully dissolved. Put in jars and process in canner. (No specifics there- I think I did mine for 15 minutes cause that is what it looked like a lot of similar things were canned for). To make the pear sauce, you just peel and cut up your pears in a big pot with about a tablespoon of water and cook until the pears are nice and mushy, then mash. Kind of like making mashed potatoes, just these ones get a lot runnier as they cook.