The fall of Summer

It has already started. This summer, that arrived so late, is making it's exit. I've begun wearing sweaters and dreaming thanksgiving dinner. I hate to see summer go, but fall has it's charm and perks. The food for example. I love the food.

Last week it was pears. We ordered a box of pears from a farm in Medford. The climate there seems to be perfect for pears. Harry and David (who are famous for their pears) grow there. They arrived green, and we watched them with ripening anticipation. As pears do, they ripened all at once. We at them plain, make pear tarts, and about 20 pints of pear butter.

We did pear butter last year with success. I made it different from the recipe I had found (as I do with everything). The recipe called for a teaspoon of nutmeg. I searched our spice cupboard in vain for the spice, but discovered that pumpkin pie spice contains nutmeg. Since I was already in the middle of the process, I forwent the trip to the store and subbed the pumpkin pie spice. It turned out smashingly. In fact, the flavor seemed to work better as time passed. I opened our last jar a month ago, and was pleasantly surprise with how the flavors had blended in a years time. I decided to stick with the recipe this year.

This years pear butter took two batches. One more successful than the other. The first I put in a crock pot and let it simmer all night. The problems that the crock pot keeps all the juices in and it doesn't cook down enough to be called pear butter. It was more like pear sauce. I was hoping to skip the laborious step of stirring it for 2 hours as it reduces down over low heat. I guess there's no way around it. The crock method also caramelized the sugars more than usual. It wasn't bad, just not what I was looking for.

The second batch I did on the stove. It reduced better and didn't caramelize.

I tried something different this year. I did a small batch of spicy pear butter. I included a bit more sugar to emphasize the difference in sweet and spicy, and added a teaspoon of Cayenne pepper for an amount that cooked down to 2 pints. It turned out nice. It's smooth and sweet at first, the the warm spice sneaks in at the end. I'm not exactly sure what to do with it, but it does taste good. I would imagine it would be a nice sauce to go on chicken or pork.

I'm looking forward to much more delicious food this fall.