I’m finally nearing the end of my huge harvest of pears but found one more recipe I wanted to try: Pears in Red Wine.  This one comes from my favorite canning cookbook: Canning for a New Generation by Liana Krissoff.

To begin, I set my canning pot on the stove to boil and sanitized my jars in the dishwasher.

I weighed out 3-1/2 pounds of ripe but firm pears.  She says to use seckel or fiorella pears.  I used the ones from my tree.  I peeled, cored and quartered them, dropping them into a bowl of cold water and lemon juice (half a lemon juiced).  I set my prepared pears aside.

Next, I made a spice bag from a piece of cheesecloth.  Inside it, I put 4 big pieces of fresh ginger, 4 cinnamon sticks, 2 teaspoons of whole cloves and 2 teaspoons of while allspice.  Aren’t the spices beautiful?  Tie it up with a pieces of cotton twine and wa-la: spice bag!

In a large canning pot, pour in 1-1/2 cups of sugar, 1 cup of wine, and 1 cup of water.  Bring it to a boil over high heat, stirring to dissolve the sugar.  Add the spice bag once the sugar is dissolved.  As it reaches a boil, lower the heat to a simmer and cook for 10 minutes.  Then discard the spices (or I saved mine and used them to make a second batch).

Fill your jars with pears, leaving an inch of headspace at the top.  Pour the hot syrup in over top, leaving 1/2 inch headspace.  Use a chopstick to tap out any excess air bubbles.

Wipe the rims, apply lids and bands and process in your water bath canner for 15 minutes.

These might come to Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner this year as a specially invited guest.  That is, if they make it that long in my pantry…