It’s the end of summer.

   The days are still hot, but we’ve had some very nice cool mornings and evenings out here.  

School has started up again and there are a few leaves scattered on the grass.  The apple, pear and crabapple trees are heavy with their fruit and it is time to start harvesting!

     We do not have any fruit trees, but we are lucky enough to have very kind people around us who are more than willing to share their bumper crop!

    So, the boys and I went apple and pear picking on Saturday.  After combing through the fruit we collected, I found the ripe ones that needed to be processed quickly and made some ginger pear honey.

  My good friend, Arlene, first introduced me to pear honey years ago.  She had many fruit trees, including a few pear trees.  She brought me over a jar filled with golden fruit and told me it was pear honey.

   I had never heard of it before, but I love homemade jams and jellies, so I was excited to try it.

If you’ve never had pear honey, it is heavenly!

     It combines the sweet pears with the tropical pineapple and it is amazing!

So naturally, I was pretty excited about the pears we had gathered so I could make some pear honey.   I changed a few things and came up with the recipe below.  

          Ginger Pear Honey

9 cups chopped pears

1 can crushed pineapple, do not drain

2 Tbs lemon juice

5 cups sugar

½ cup honey

½ Tbs. ground ginger

OR

Chopped fresh ginger to taste

1 tea. Vanilla

Mix pears, pineapple, lemon juice, sugar and honey into a large pot.  Add fresh ginger, if you are using that.

 Mix and heat until boiling.  Simmer for 40-60 minutes until pears are soft and desired consistency is achieved.  Add vanilla and ground ginger( if using the ground ginger)

Fill clean jars and tighten the lids.  

Hot water bath for 10 minutes for processing.

You can add 1 package of pectin at the beginning, if you want more of a jelly consistency.   Otherwise, this has more of a chutney consistency. 

Let me know what you think!

~Chris & Carrie