Preserving the Season

It's that time of year again when we receive our peaches and pears from Colorado that we've ordered through a local church. I look forward to getting these each year because they are THE best tasting fruit! Both fruits are so juicy and yummy to eat fresh, but I like to take the majority of them and do some canning to save for the winter months ahead.

With the peaches I just cut them into slices and process them in a hot water bath. I was able to get 13 pints this year with plenty of fresh fruit left for us to munch away at.

For the pears, my sister-in-law found this great and simple recipe for Pearsauce a couple years ago, and since then, that's what my family has requested instead of plain pear slices. For the recipe, the lady doesn't can her sauce, but freezes it. For me, it's just better to process and can the sauce so I looked in my Ball Canning Book to see what was the best way to go about this, and it simply said to just follow the process for canning applesauce. Easy enough. You can adjust the spices to your liking and even add a little sugar if you need it. Now we'll be able to enjoy these yummy fruits over winter and even use it to make baby food.

I'm also working on freezing some corn that we get from a local grower near town. I'm telling you, when you have this corn, you don't want to eat any other corn out there. I think I'll get 6 dozen ears of corn to cook and freeze in pint size Ziploc baggies to use in soups, casseroles or eat plain over the winter. Yum!