I Made Pear Jam... With My Mom!!

Mom and I used to make jam every year.  Well, we bottled lots of stuff, actually.  Strawberry, raspberry, and pear jam, along with peaches, pears, tomatoes, salsa, and marinara.  Now that I live like 2500 miles away, that has become a thing of the past, and boy have I missed it.  So when she called and basically said, “Can I come visit you next week?”, one of the first things I did was run out and buy some pears so they would have time to ripen.  I might have even bought them before we had a bed for her to sleep in.  You know, we all have different priorities.  No way was I going to miss an opportunity to make jam with my mom.  Even if you don’t have a jam making partner, don’t be scared off.  It’s easy enough to make alone, and way better than anything you can buy in the store.  

Here’s what you’ll need:

• 5 cups mashed pears (about 8 or 9 pears)
• 5 cups sugar
• 2 Tablespoons lemon juice
• 1 package of pectin

The first thing you want to do is measure your sugar and set it aside so that it’s easily accessible when you need it. 

Next, squeeze 2 Tablespoons of lemon juice into a large measuring cup. I like using a measuring cup because then you can measure as you go. 

Just a couple notes about Bartlett pears, which is what I use and recommend.  They are always picked green.  They don’t really ripen on the tree, they rot.  So when you buy them, just try to get a group that are roughly the same stage of ripeness and similar in size.  When the pears are ripe, they’ll be a nice yellow color and quite soft, and they’ll smell amazing.  Now for prepping them.  Pull out the stem and cut the pear in half.  Run a small knife from top to bottom angling under the core area. 

Then just pop the piece out. 

Because pears are soft, a knife is your best implement for peeling. 

Cut the halves into large chunks and drop them in with the lemon juice. 

Using a potato masher, mash the pears and mix them with the lemon juice as you go. 

There’s 4 cups. 

Pour that into a large pan, then measure one more cup.  When it’s all in, mash until you have only small chunks remaining. 

Sprinkle on your pectin and stir it in, then turn the heat to medium. 

At this point, I obviously got distracted with gabbing, because I totally spaced taking more pictures until it was all finished.  It was the day after my mom had gotten into town, what would you expect?  Although, there’s not much left to do.  Stirring constantly, bring the pears to a full boil.  Once you’re there, pour in the sugar, and continue stirring.  Bring the mixture back to a boil and boil for 1 minute.  Turn off the heat and pour the jam into bottles.  It’s important that your bottles have been sterilized, as well as the lids.  After boiling the bottles, I like to put them through a dry cycle in the dishwasher so that they’re hot when I fill them.  Fill them to about ½ inch from the top.  Leave the lids in simmering water, then just pull them out and put them onto the bottles as you go.  Technically, at this point, you should process the bottles.  I don’t do that with jam, but of course it’s safer if you do.  Either way, you’ll end up with amazing jam.  This recipe gave me 7 ½ cups of finished jam. 

If you look at the instructions in your pectin box, you’ll see that the only thing I’ve changed in the recipe is the amount of pears.  I’ve found through trial and error that this ratio gives the perfect jam consistency.  Not too thick, not too thin. 

My favorite thing to use pear jam for is pancakes.  I’m pretty sure they’re soul mates.  I'm sure you could use it for countless other things, though.  French toast, on top of ice cream, in oatmeal, or even just a pb&j.   

Who is your kitchen partner and what thing would you miss most if you could no longer make it with them?

Hubby Likes My New Biscuit!

I have to be honest, Hubby’s never really been that thrilled with my biscuits.  Oh, they’re good enough that he doesn’t complain when I make them, but I hear the occasional, “These aren’t like the ones I grew up on.”  With that in mind, I’ve been trying to keep my eyes open for biscuit recipes that are different than the usual cut in butter, add cream and/or buttermilk.  Recently, I stumbled across exactly what I was looking for.  Ok, so I didn’t immediately realize it was what I was looking for.  In fact, when I saw 7 up in the ingredients list, I was more than a little skeptical. 

Here’s what you’ll need:

• 1 ¾ cups flour
• 1 Tablespoon baking powder
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 2 Tablespoons butter, cold
• ½ cup sour cream
• ½ cup lemon lime soda
• ¼ cup butter, melted

Preheat your oven to 425°.  Melt ¼ cup butter and set it aside to cool.  In a mixing bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients. 

Cut your cold butter into little chunks and throw them in. 

Turn the mixer on lowish speed and mix until you have something that sort of resembles moist sand.

A pastry blender will also work fine for that, but as you know by now, I’m lazy.  Add the sour cream.  Now, ordinarily I use low fat sour cream.  For tacos or whatever, I just prefer the texture.  However, biscuits need fat, so make sure you use regular, full fat, sour cream. 

Mix that in until it’s incorporated and you have basically a crumbly mess.

Pour in the soda.  It’ll foam up quite a bit as you add it, but don’t worry. 

I know you’re questioning my sanity at this point, and perhaps you should.  But stay with me on the biscuits, you’ll be glad you did.  Stir just until it comes together into a soft, sticky dough. 

Pour your melted butter into the bottom of an 8x8 pan. 

Dust your countertop with plenty of flour.  Scoop the dough onto it, and sprinkle it with flour as well. 

Pat it into a disc about ¾ of an inch thick.  The dough is soft enough, you won’t need a rolling pin. 

Flour your cutter and push it straight down through the dough.  Gather the scraps and repeat.  You should get 9 biscuits. 

Place the cut biscuits into the pan. 

Then flip them over so both sides are liberally coated with butter.  Oh shush, they’re biscuits, not health food. 

Into the preheated oven for 15 – 20 minutes.  They should be nice and golden brown when they’re done.

You could eat them just as they are, they really are fabulous.  Crispy on the outside and soft and tender within.  We had them with sausage gravy, but honey or homemade strawberry jam are also good accompaniments. 

What childhood recipe does your hubby wish you could make?