Thursday, August 20, 2009

We are busy around here!

Have you seen those big rubber-maid tubs before? (Okay....why am I asking? Everyone has seen those, right? If you come from a big family, you probably have lots of these filled up and stacked in your basement.) :)

They're very handy things. They're useful for storing out-of-season clothes and old keepsakes. (And, when you're a little girl, they hide junk that you don't want your Mom to find and throw away.) When you (eventually) lose the lids the tubs can retire to become school-book totes and laundry baskets, and then when they get too beat up for that they can move outdoors to store baseball bats, Frisbees, balls, and jump ropes.

Yes, Sir. Very handy things.

They also work nicely as containers for bulk-picked food. This week a friend with two pear trees was kind enough to let us pick all the pears we wanted from her excess. Two of my sisters and I loaded 2 rubber-maid totes in the back of the car and went pear-pickin'.

The three of us filled both of those totes in about 30 minutes! Almost half of those we gave away to friends yesterday, but we still have 2 half-filled tubs of pears sitting in our kitchen. They are still a little hard, and we're going to let them ripen some more before doing anything with them, but in the meantime I'd like to ask for suggestion. I bet we have enough pears to try any and every recipe you suggest! ....Twice....or three times. We could probably make each recipe FOUR times and still have leftovers!

I'd especially like to try a pear pie filling recipe, or another such recipe that can be made in large batched and preserved. (I've done that before, but want to compare my recipe with yours to see if I can improve it!) ...But pear cakes, muffins, etc. recipes would all be welcomed as well!

Please? Thanks so much!

3 comments:

Amanda said...

My all time favorite thing to do with pears??? Can them, they are sooooooooo good! : ) I have had pear butter before and that was really good...
I'll be interested to hear what other people do with them.

hannah said...

What a blessing to have so many fresh pears shared. I second Marie's suggestion, because canning them as pear halves is all I've ever made with pears (that I can think of). I was going to also mention that I did them in white grape juice--vs.sugar syrup. They turned out very tasty!

Also, try using your favorite apple crisp recipe and substituting pears--I've eaten them that way, and it is very good. Anything using apples really. But you probably already thought of that seeing how creative you are.:)

Amanda said...

Sounds like fun!:) I'll keep an eye out for good pear recipes... we have a good apple recipe that we've substituted pears for before, and we love it! I don't have it right here, though...