Pear Mincemeat and Pear Conserve

My dear friend Barbara sent me a letter this week...enclosed was their family recipe for Pear Mincemeat. I will definitely make this next year. I have to post my recipes here or I loose them. I have recipes in boxes, plastic boxes, plastic envelopes, recipes from auctions, I will soon need a forklift to move the piles, but I love recipes and sharing good ones is a blessing from one friend to another.

Pear Mincemeat
(Recipe from the Robinson family)

10 pounds pears (peeled and cored)
3 oranges (peel and pulp)
3 lemons (peel and pulp)
3 Delicious apples with peel
2 pounds raisins

Grind all the above together and add:
1 (24 oz.) bottle of Grape Juice
1 #2 can of crushed Pineapple
5 Pounds of sugar
1 Tablespoon each of cloves, nutmeg, all-spice, and
cinnamon
Mix all the ingredients and cook 30 minutes, stirring to
keep it from sticking.
Add 1 pound margarine or butter. Cook about 15 minutes
more. Seal in canning jars.
One pint will make 1 pie......


This recipe was shared on Homesteading Today by Granny Sue. I
made this and it is wonderful I also tried it with apples and
it is a beautiful blend, looks so pretty in the jars. I changed
the recipe up just a little and used two jars of marischino cherries
(drained) as I wanted a lot of color.She used candied cherries in
her recipe.


Pear Conserve

4 cups of peeled, cored and finely chopped pear
(the type of hand chopper often used for onions worked great for this)
1/4 cup chopped, candied cherries
1/2 orange (juice and rind)
1 box fruit pectin
5 1/2 cups sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg

Prepare and measure the pears into a large saucepan. (If there is little juice, add 1/4 cup of water.)
Squeeze the juice out of the orange and into the pears in the saucepan.
Grate or zest the orange's peel into the mixture. Add the chopped cherries, spices and pectin and heat to boiling, stirring constantly.
Add the sugar and stir until sugar is dissolved. Stir constantly to prevent scorching.
Cook to a full rolling boil. Boil one minute, stirring constantly. Remove from heat. Stir and skim off foam for 5 minutes.
Ladle into hot sterilized jars. Clean jar rims carefully, put on lids and turn upside down for twenty minutes to aid the sealing process.
Return to upright position, tighten lids and check for seal as the jars cool.

Canning Time

Fall months means lots of canning and dehydrating around here. Praise the Lord for generous friends who share as well. I had a call a couple weeks ago to "come get these pears". There were at least four bushels of them. I gladly went and got them, and am doing the last batch today. I mostly make Pear Honey, Benny's favorite. It is just pears cooked down with sugar until thick, then add a can of drained crushed Pineapple and continue to cook down till ready to go on a biscuit...LOL...nice and thick. Yesterday, I added marischino cherries and left off the pineapple, and this morning I plan to make Pear Compote...Pears, Marischino cherries, some orange juice from one orange, and the orange zest. I have been making labels for the jars...I am not that creative, but this is so easy...clip art, then cover front and back with clear packing tape, draw on my circles for wide mouth or regular jars, and cut them out, place on the top of the band and screw down the ring...I have been doing all my jars that way this year, lots of beautiful designs, and they are really cute.


This is how the labels look when I am working on them....


This set is from Debbie Mumm's Little Cowboy which is quickly becoming one of my favorite clipart sets....

Still have lots of apples to dehydrate. One of my neighbors has a wonderful apple tree. She allows me to have all the apples that fall on the ground. I have made applesauce, applebutter, and now am dehydrating them. My old dehydrator gave up the ghost, I cannot complain, it lasted me over thirty years. I bought a new one, and it is on the porch, ready to be opened and put to work.
My sister-in-law came to visit last week...she fell in love with the dehyrdated tomatoes, and she loved the apples, told me she was going home and order a dehydrator for herself.

Chocolate Torte

Another fantastic chocolate recipe for chocoholics...my friend Linda makes this for third Sunday dinners and it is gone before you can get to the dessert table. I have also heard it called Chocolate Delight, but I will eat it either way I can get it....and so she graciously gave this recipe hound her recipe to share...Enjoy...with thanks to Linda !

Chocolate Torte

2 sticks margarine
2 cups flour
3/4 cup pecans
1 (8 oz.) package of Cream cheese
1 cup powdered Sugar
1/2 large carton of Cool Whip
2 large packages of Instant Chocolate Pudding
3 cups milk
Chocolate chunks

Mix margarine, flour, and pecans. Press into baking dish.
Bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes. Cool.
For second layer, mix cream cheese, powdered sugar and Cool
Whip. Pour into cooled crust.
For third layer, mix Instant pudding with milk. Pour over
the second layer. Top with the rest of the Cool Whip and
sprinkle with Chocolate chunks.