Sunday, August 31, 2014

Pears, Pears, Pears

There is a small Buddhist temple in our neighborhood. It was once a home and boasts a nice pear tree in the front yard. It's a throwback to a bygone era when every family had fruit-bearing tree in their yard. The monks don't harvest the pears, they simply rake them into a pile and let them rot.

Kyle recently happened to be driving past when one of the monks was outside. (This is the point in the story where I envision the car coming to a screeching halt.) When Kyle asked about the tree the monk told him he could pick "unlimited" pears.

So, while I was at work Kyle loaded up the girls and a bucket in the wagon and carried a step ladder over to the temple. The yield was about about five gallons of pears.
The girls snacked on a few of them, but they weren't great for eating whole. Kyle chopped up the lot of them and dumped them in the stock pot.
First he softened them in the pot for about twenty minutes before running them through the Kitchenaid fruit and vegetable strainer. Then it was back into the pot along with three cinnamon sticks. After about three or four hours of cooking on medium heat and we had pear sauce!
At the end of the day we had 9 quarts, one pint of super tasty pear sauce.
Kyle says we'll need a bit more pear sauce to compare to the volume of apple sauce the girls gobbled up last year, but for nearly zero dollars spent, I'd say we're off to a great start!

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