Spiced poached pears

We made this in my last canning class of 2011. It is a mixture of several recipes. This will make enough for 7 pints.

3 quarts water
6 C turbinado sugar
1 vanilla bean, split
2 sticks cinnamon
2 oranges, 7 slices of peeling set aside, the rest zested
11 pears, not soft ones

In a large pot, mix the water and sugar. Scrape the vanilla seeds into the pot and then add the pod. Add the cinnamon and orange zest. You can add the juice of the orange, too, if you'd like.

Peel, core, and slice the pears into 1/4" thickness. Add them to the pot. Simmer for around 20-25 minutes, or until the pears are tender.

Spoon the pears into pint jars, add enough of the cooking liquid to leave a 1/2" head space. Process for 25 minutes.

**We opened these last night, warmed them up a bit, and served them with vanilla ice cream. Heaven in your mouth.

Pickled Beets-Canned

Here is the recipe I decided to use. I used my own pickling spice (already posted on this blog) although you can buy it locally or online.


To prepare the beets for this recipe you will want to leave the root and 2 inches of the stem on the beet. Beets have a tendency to bleed if you remove these areas too soon.

Scrub the beets thoroughly to remove excess dirt and other particles.

Put the beets in a large sauce pan and add water until the beets are covered. Bring the beets to a boil and cook until tender. This can be 20-40 minutes depending on the size and quantity of beets you are processing. OR you can choose to pressure cook them from 10-30 minutes depending on their size.

Remove cooked beets from sauce pan and run cool water over them. OR you can put them into a bowl of icy water and leave them till you are ready to keep working on them.

You should now be able to easily remove the skin, root and stem of each beet.

Now that you have the beets prepared we can continue with the canning process. This recipe makes about six pint jars. 

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Ingredients for Canning Pickled Beets
3 tbsp - pickling spice

2 1/2 cups - white vinegar
1 cup - water
1 cup - granulated sugar
10 cups - prepared beets

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Directions for Canning Pickled Beets
1. Prepare canner, jars and lids.

2. Put the pickling spice in cheesecloth, creating a spice bag.
3. Combine the following into a large stainless steel sauce pan:
- vinegar - water - sugar - spice bag
4. Bring to a boil over medium heat and stir until the sugar is dissolved.
5. Reduce the heat and boil for 15 minutes more.
6. Remove the spice bag.
7. Add the beets to the mixture and return to a boil.
8. Remove beets from mixture with a slotted spoon put into hot jars. Leave 1/2 inch of room at top of jar.
9. Ladle the hot pickling liquid into each jar, making sure the beets are covered. Remove air bubbles and add more liquid if required. Again, you want to make sure you leave at 1/2 each of head space at top of each jar.
10. Wipe the rim of each jar and place a lid and band on each.
11. Put the jars in the canner and place lid on top
12. Make sure the jars are completely covered with water.
13. Bring to a boil and process for 30 minutes.
14. Remove canner lid and let cool for 5 minutes.
15. Remove the jars and let cool before storing.

**I doubled the liquid. Even though I only had enough beets for 4 pints, I only had maybe one more pint of liquid left. So this would not have made enough for 6 (as it states). Although this was easy to do, it took a lot of time because of all the cooking. The finished product looks beautiful! And the spices smelt amazing. Can't wait to try them when it gets to be winter!

Pickling Spice

I haven't pickled beets although I think they taste great. It took a lot of searching to discover my own pickling spice recipe. I have to say I was surprised at the ingredients. It will be quite a treat to taste these beets. I will can them in a water bath canner so they can be shelved in my pantry.

Pickling Spice:

2 tablespoons mustard seeds2 tablespoons whole allspice2 teaspoons coriander seeds2 teaspoons whole cloves1 teaspoon ground ginger1 teaspoon dried red pepper flakes1 bay leaves, crumbled1 cinnamon sticks ( 2 inches)  I couldn't find whole allspice berries so I used 1 t ground. I mixed all this up (and cut up the cinnamon into chunks).