Preserving Pears

Sometimes we joke that we bought our yard and the house came with it. That's because in the warm months, there are times when the house gets neglected because we are focusing our energy on the backyard, which includes mature fruit trees- 1 pear and 1 apple, 3 raised bed gardens, a 200 square ft. rain garden, 2 compost bins, and-most recently-aronia berry bushes and 2 paw paws! The fall is filled with lots of preserving, and in the past we couldn't go through the pears fast enough- even dehydrating them (which is excellent) only uses a few at a time, and the thing with pears is that they are ripe for about a week, so the window to do something with all that tasty fruit is small!
So, I wanted to share what I did this year.

First, I boiled some water and got a big bowl of ice water ready. I had the idea that I was going to hold the pear by the stem and dip it in the water, then put it in the ice water to cool (to make it easier to remove the skin, like you do with tomatoes). This didn't end up working, because it takes pears much longer to soften their skins than tomatoes. I ended up dropping a couple of pears into the boiling water and removing them with a slotted spoon after a few minutes. Still, the skins did not just rub off.

I ended up using a paring (pear-ing) knife to peel off the peal, but it was worth using the boiling water method first, because peeling off a softened skin is much easier than a hard one.
Once the skin and core were removed, I sliced the pear and put it in a bowl with a little water and lemon juice in it.




When I was done, I put the pear slices in quart ziplocks with some of the acidic water, tried to squeeze as much air out as possible, and stuck them in the freezer for use in desserts this winter!

Don't forget to compost!