Directions: |
Directions:Fill a pan with water, it must hold enough water to completely immerse pears for blanching.
Simple Light Syrup:
Mix the sugar and water in a pan and let it soak for about 10 minutes without heat. Over low heat, stir the mixture until the sugar dissolves. Increase the heat to bring the mixture to a boil. Just briefly to get rid of the gritty texture. Lower the heat and keep syrup warm until you are ready to use it.
Wash the pears gently. Place 3-4 pears into boiling blanching water at a time. Blanch pears for 30 seconds and remove with a slotted spoon and plunge into ice water. Repeat with all pears.
If the skins do not slip off, peel the pears using a dull knife, slip skins off fruit, immersing naked pears into a bowl of clean cold lemon water to which you've added a couple sprinkles of salt (or Fruit Fresh), to prevent browning.
Taking one pear out of the water, slice pear into 6 equal slices. Using a wide-mouth funnel, fill pint jar with as many slices to easily fill it to within 1/2" from the rim. Ladle in enough hot syrup to cover slices. Add a half of a vanilla bean to the jar. Run a thin knife blade around between slices and the wall of the jar to remove air bubbles.
Using lint-free clean cloth, gently wipe around the top of the jar to remove any trace of fruit or syrup. Use a lid lifter to remove one lid from hot water and place onto jar, without touching under side of lid. Gently screw ring onto jar and tighten only finger-tight.
Using jar lifter, lift filled jar and set it on the canner rack so it sits upright. Repeat above steps until all jars are full. When you start filling the 6th jar, turn heat up under canner so water will be boiling when all the jars are filled.
Wearing heavy rubber gloves, grasp the canner rack handles and lift the filled jars from the top position, hanging on the rim of the canner, and lower the rack to rest on the bottom. Be sure to cover the jars with 1.5" water. Cover with canner lid. Start timing when the water is boiling and process the pears in the canner for 20 minutes. |
This recipe for Canned Pears with Vanilla Bean is from