Worked up about 30 lbs of pears, which sounds like a lot!! When all is said and the food mill is put away, you end up with 12 pints of sauce or less, if you cook it down to a thick consistency. The pears were so sweet no sugar was needed and since the 1st batch was for the grand babies no spices were added either. So, the 1st batch made 6 1/2 pints the 2nd will make less as it will be cooked down even more for pear butter. Since these pears are so sweet adjustments will be needed when adding spices as to not detract from it's natural sweetness and flavor. Maybe a touch of cinnamon and cloves will do it.
You may wonder how we prepared them for sauce...
1. Sorted through and removed the over ripe pears.
2. Washed in cold water.
3. Cut them in 1/4's, removing the flower end. No need to peel or remove seeds at this point.
4. In a large cooking pot add pears to almost the top, add 1 to 2 cups of water.
5. Cook, stirring occasionally, till soft, use a potato masher to squash them down and cook a bit longer.
6. Remove from heat and let cool enough to be easy to work with. Mine sat in the refrigerator over night. Then, using a food mill, milled all of the cooked pears to remove seeds and skins.
7. Now you're ready to cook the pear sauce down and add any sugar and spices you'd like to flavor it with. Put the sauce back into a large cooking pot and bring it to a boil, stirring as needed, lower the heat so it's just simmering. You'll need to keep a close watch on it so it doesn't scorch... keep stirring!
When it gets to the consistency you like it's time to either freeze or can your sauce. For recipes and more on canning and freezing refer to safe canning/freezing guidelines that can be found on line or by purchasing a canning/preserving book. I like books; you can make notes and keep them in the book for the next canning season!
https://www.freshpreserving.com/recipes/
