Making Pear Butter

What do you do with a profusion of pears?

When we bought this house, we knew there were several fruit trees on the property, but didn't know enough about them (past the season) to figure out what they were. When the fruit started growing that first year, we were excited to find that two of the trees had pears, and one had apples.

None of the trees is in great shape (they are old and have been neglected), but in spite of their somewhat misshapen condition, so far the pear trees have produced many more pears than we could ever possibly eat, even if we ate them for every meal every day.

Last year, a good friend suggested I make pear butter. I'd never heard of pear butter before, but basically it's just apple butter, but made with pears. My kids like apple butter, so I was game, especially since I needed to make something I could can easily, and we'd already eaten enough pear sauce (instead of apple sauce) and sauteed pears (for dessert) to start turning us into pear shaped people...

So, we picked the rest of our pears before Irene came, and we've been storing them ever since. I have to admit that I've been procrastinating about doing anything with them since I've never made pear butter on my own, BUT some of them were getting too ripe (yes, we lost some, but the chickens enjoyed them), so I finally had to jump in and give making pear butter a try. Here's how it turned out...

Here's our basic recipe: 

6-7 pounds pears (about 20 medium)

4 cups of sugar

1/2 cup orange juice

1 tsp apple pie spice

a dash of sea salt

Wash the pears. Core the pears and slice them into sections (I have an apple corer/slicer that does this, or you can do it by hand...I leave the skins on to make it less time consuming, but you can peel them if you want to. It is not necessary that they be thinly sliced...even having them cut up in just four sections will do). 

Put the pears in a large sauce pot with about a cup of water (you can use less, but I was afraid they would burn if I used less). Simmer them over medium heat until the pears are soft. 

(Sorry, I forgot to take a picture of this step). 

Puree the pears using a food mill (or you could use a food processor, I suppose, but I used the hand mill my friend gave me). Be careful not to liquefy the pears. You want them to have texture.

Measure 2 quarts of pear pulp when you are done. Put it back into the rinsed pot (at this point, if you didn't use much water, it is basically non-seasoned pear sauce...though when I make my pear sauce, I hand mash the pears for a coarser texture, and I do peel the pears) and add the sugar. Stir until the sugar dissolves completely. Then, add the orange juice, the apple pie spice, and the salt.

Now....wait. For a long time. Simmer the pears over medium to medium-low heat (I put a lid on the pot to prevent splatters, but cracked it to let the steam evaporate) until the pear sauce thickens and darkens. My friend says to "cook it until it is thick enough to round up on a spoon." The volume of your pear butter will have decreased by the time you are done. Notice how the butter in the picture below is darker than the sauce that just got started in the picture above.

This may take quite a long time (several hours), so now would be a good time to clean out your silverware and junk drawers, read a good book, or organize your shelves. I read a whole book, sitting in my rocking chair, alternately reading short books to individual kids who'd sit on my lap for a few minutes (I had a migraine that day). It was nice, in spite of the headache.

It is important to not burn the sauce, so regular stirring is essential, and monitoring the heat so it is bubbly (and losing moisture), but not sticking or bubbling over is vital...so not getting too distracted is a good idea (we slightly overdid a small batch, which we will keep for ourselves. Oops.)

 Once it is done, it will have a thick, spreadable consistency and be absolutely delicious. You can either ladle the hot butter into hot jars, leaving head space, removing the air bubbles, and adjusting two piece caps before processing the jars in a boiling water canner for ten minutes OR you can put it into freezer jars and store it in your freezer for up to a year, BUT believe me, between the jars you give away and the ones your kids devour, your pear butter won't last that long. Don't forget to label your jars, though, so you can keep track of when it was made, and what it is.

Making pear butter is a great project for a rainy day...and a lot of fun for the whole family. Delicious fun. Enjoy!!

Feel free to share your yummy recipes for anything having to do with pears or apples. I'd love to try them!

Blessings,

Heather

Blueberries for Sal

Before Five in a Row by Jane Claire Lambert is a "treasury of creative learning ideas" based upon outstanding classic picture books  geared towards ages 2-4. It contains 23 mini-book units, as well as a forty page section entitled "Parent's Treasury of Creative Ideas for Learning Readiness." This section is filled with suggestions to inspire you to fill your preschooler's days with gently challenging activities to inspire his curiosity and imagination. Some of the suggestions include: developing a dress up box (check!), collecting puppets and putting on puppet shows (check!), making sorting games and threading and lacing activities (check!), using blocks to jump start creative building processes (check!), giving your child a large box to play in and see what they do with it (check!...and they even mentioned my ALL TIME FAVORITE BOOK Christina Katerina and the Big Box. If you haven't read it yet, find it. You will love it, too. I promise.), making homemade instruments (check!), and having a grocery store scavenger hunt (we did not get to that one...more fun ahead!).

Before Five in a Row is an excellent resource for:

• parents of preschool-aged children who need a little inspiration
• new homeschoolers with younger mixed-aged children who need a starting point and a bit of encouragement
• teachers of preschool students
• Grandparents who want to spend quality time with their grandkids, but need ideas
• after-school caregivers who want to do more than plunk their charges down in front of the television
• anyone with a child ages 2-4 (there is a bit of leeway here if you adjust the simplicity or complexity of the activities) who wants guidance and suggestions towards quality literature and enrichment activities

What I liked about the book:

• I especially liked that every book was accompanied by a Bible verse which fit the theme of the book. For example, the Bible verse for Blueberries for Sal, the book we used, was Ruth 1:16: "But Ruth answered, "Don't force me to leave you. Don't make me turn back from following you. Wherever you go, I will go, and wherever you stay, I will stay. Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God." If you know the story, you will understand how well this fits. Sal and her mother are picking blueberries, but Sal becomes distracted and winds up getting lost, as does a baby bear, who is also distracted by the berry picking he is doing with his mother. It's a great chance to talk about the importance of staying together, paying attention, and following mommy (or daddy) carefully.
• Which brings me to the next thing I really liked, the emphasis on strong values, character, manners, hospitality, health, and safety that is evident throughout the book. Not only are the chosen books ones that I consider to be excellent in literary quality, but Jane Claire Lambert uses these classics to spotlight lessons that will develop a child's character...where the books' subjects lack character, she sparks a discussion on why this is bad, where they evidence a high standard, she focuses on why it is good.
• Other topics addressed in the suggested activities mainly revolve around the subjects of art, nature, science, math, language and vocabulary, geography, culture, music, relationships, social studies, and community. 
• Each lesson gives a brief summary of the book, lists the book's author, illustrator, & publisher, and suggests activities in multiple disciplines. Some stories give more detailed background information than others.
• The book is encouraging and is very easy to use.
• The company has extensive supplemental resources, such as Fold and Learn books, specialized planners, discussion boards, and nature studies. If you find you really enjoy the BFIAR or FIAR books, you can add to them to make them as complex and detailed of a study as you like...or you can leave them simple.

What I did not like:

• The background information and enrichment ideas were not as extensive as I'd have liked. Since I have multiple ages (my younger set ranges from 2-8 years), the extra information and suggestions would have helped me utilize the book without further research better. However, since this set is specifically targeted towards ages 2-4, the lack of more highly developed ideas is understandable. For us, it was a drawback. I found myself listing more things I could do with each book in the blank space after each chapter (especially things geared toward the older kids). For someone else (especially someone new to homeschooling, or with very young kids only), the simplicity and gentle attitude might be just what they are looking for. 
• Since the books are older classics, some of them were harder to find. Out of the 23 titles, my library only had about five of them...only three of which were available for checkout when I was looking. I had eight more of them at home, which got me up to eleven books. I would have to actively search Amazon or used book sales if I wanted to do all the titles in the book.
• This is a book of simple ideas, not activities. Yes, some ideas for activities are given, such as planting a carrot top and watching for it to "green up" or making a cave out of boxes, but most of the ideas revolve around gentle discussions and observations of the text and illustrations in the books you read. If you are looking for creative and active things that someone else tells you to DO with your child, or a collection of printable activities to go with each book, that is NOT what Before Five in a Row is all about. This book emphasizes the process of sitting together with your child, reading a book actively, observing it, pondering it,  processing it, and learning from it. This is a good thing, but only if it is what you are looking for.

Before Five in a Row costs $35 and can be purchased from Rainbow Resource. You can read more about the book on the Before Five in a Row website.

a blueberry bush

Here's what we studied using 

Before Five in a Row (BFIAR):

Blueberries for Sal

by Robert McClosky

(think Make Way for Ducklings)

We started the day with bowls of Blueberry Morning cereal, to get the ball rolling.

Then, we sat together and reminisced about past trips to pick blueberries (and strawberries).

We relaxed on the couch and read the book, looking at the charming illustrations carefully, then we talked about how Sal does not pay attention and winds up getting separated from her mother. We discussed the importance of listening to parents, and of staying together, and looking out for one another, using the story of Ruth from the Bible, as suggested in BFIAR. Cowboy has been working on learning "boys take care of girls" (he was being a bit rough last week), and this fit in nicely with that lesson.

Cowboy helped Mommy pick blueberries, 

while the ladies rested after strawberry picking.

Firefly is three, almost four, and she enjoyed talking about her memories of helping mommy pick a huge basket full of strawberries last spring. We discussed helping and working as a team (another topic we have been working on...in the book Sal's mom tells Sal that she can't eat them all because she needs to use them to make jam...). We laughed and remembered how they ate so many strawberries,they were almost too full for freshly made strawberry ice cream at the end of the day!! (They were allowed to eat any that were too mushy to collect in the basket and would go to waste if left).

Using a bag of frozen blueberries from our trip, I had Firefly practice counting them into a glass jar so she could experience a "Kerplunk!" sound like the one mentioned in the book. The older ones (Cowboy and Ladybug) used some of them to do their math (using the berries as counting manipulatives). 

I also printed some of the activities I found on Homeschool Creations and let Firefly and the older ones work on them (we printed up copies of the cards to play memory, the printing exercise for Firefly, the summary page for the older ones, and the directional words exercise for Firefly), while I got things out to make jam.

By lunchtime, the berries had thawed enough to make a fruit salad and to put up three jars of freezer jam. We saved enough berries to make blueberry pancakes one last time, and a batch of blueberry muffins.

The next day, we colored pictures with blue crayons, like the ones in the book. The kids thought this was fun, and went on to make other pictures using just one color palette or another.

By the third time we read the book, Boo and Firefly were very familiar with it, and pointed out their favorite parts excitedly. It was cute and rewarding to see. 

The older two were particularly interested in the historical differences in the pictures (we'd talked about things like there not being milkmen anymore and what old cars looked like just the other day when we were reading some Eloise Wilkin books), so we read from a series of books I picked up at a book sale a while back, called, "In Grandmother's Day..." I think I will have them write their grandmother tomorrow and have each one ask her a question about her life...like what did you cook, what was your first car, etc. We might print and make these nifty books on grandmothers and grandfathers from Enchanted Learning.

For fun, I found the book read aloud on You Tube, and let them watch it. Ladybug practiced reading it to the others while I made dinner.


Overall, the kids had a very nice time. This is one of the books I remember fondly from my childhood. They loved it, too, and now it will be one of their favorites.


What I thought about using BFIAR:


Would I have read this book to my kids anyway? Yes, I did last spring. Would I have done a unit using the book without BFIAR? No. Probably not. Could I have come up with the ideas, or ones like them without the book. Probably. I came up with more, actually, though I didn't do them all. But would I have done so? No, probably not. I also would not have connected the excellent Bible story to the book, or the study of the differences between the book's time period and now. I did wind up looking up and finding other resources on my own for the older kids, but had it just been Boo and/or Firefly I was using BFIAR with (they are ages 2 and almost 4), I could have done without the extras. Was this book a worthwhile resource? Yes, I think so. Especially for someone with very young children who is new to homeschooling.

• Learn more about BFIAR and FIAR on their website.
• See what other members of the TOS Review Crew thought about BFIAR
• Blueberries for Sal read-aloud on YouTube
• Blueberries for Sal printables from Homeschool Creations
• Grandparents printables from Enchanted Learning

Disclosure: I am a member of the TOS Review Crew and I was given this product free for review purposes. The opinions I have expressed about this product are my own. If you have questions, please feel free to contact me.

Ladybug's Peanut Butter, Honey, and Banana Sandwich Tutorial

Welcome to my tutorial for my

"Go-Bananas-and-Bee-my-Honey-Because-I-am-Stuck-on-You-Sandwiches"

By Guest Poster:  Ladybug

Ingredients needed:

JIF Peanut Butter

(or your favorite, but we think JIF is yummiest!)

Honey (local honey is best, but we couldn't find any)

A ripe banana (the less green, the better...brown spots are okay

...that means it is sweeter)

Two slices of bread per sandwich

 (one banana can make three sandwiches).

Step One: Slice banana into thin pieces.

Step Two: Add a squiggle of honey to one slice of bread per sandwich

(you can make funny faces if you want to).

You might want to spread it out a bit (or not).

 Step Three: Put banana slices on top of honey.

It takes about five slices per sandwich, or you can use more

if you have more bananas available.

Step Four: Spread peanut butter on the other slice of bread

for each sandwich.

Use lots. Yum!

Step Five: Put the peanut butter half on top of the
banana and honey half.
Done!

Voila! Delicious Peanut Butter, banana, and honey sandwiches.

Easy enough that a kid can make them!

Delicious enough that a kid can't wait to eat them, too.

YUM!!!

 MMMMMMMM!

That's a thumbs up from me.

I hope you like it, too.

Blessings,

Ladybug

Mom got this published for me on The Legacy of Home's The Christian Home Blog Carnival. That's nifty!

Saturday Tea Time

The sugar spoon was a gift from my Grandma Pooh...it has a tiny teapot on top.

 Isn't it adorable?

This Saturday the ladies had tea time at Blessing Farm. While Hubby took the boys off the a local historic plantation for a Civil War re-enactment, meeting some friends there, and having a literal "blast" (I hear there was quite a bit of cannon fire), the ladies gathered at home for the genteel practice of having tea.

I got up early and ground some white wheat to make my family's favorite Bran Muffins (recipe below), and they turned out moist and scrumptious (it's a good recipe, you should try it). Ladybug had talked me into buying some lemon cake at the grocery store after our Antique Mall trip the night before (it was the same price to buy the pre-made lemon cake made as it was to buy a lemon cake mix and icing to top it with), so we had that to grace our table as well.

We brewed up a pot of my favorite Earl Grey tea (decaffeinated, since the children were drinking it with us), and the girls helped Nanny set the table with their little tea sets and our "grown up" one (another delightful Antique Mall find using my Christmas gift certificate from Bubba...two beautfiul tea pots, four scalloped edged serving plates, and a matching creamer and sugar dish). We each had a cup and saucer (they are from Ladybug's set, a gift from Miss S. on her birthday), a small cake plate (some of my milk glass plates), a tiny spoon for stirring (from...the Antique Mall...I LOVE that place), and a crocheted-edged napkin (a set of four...a gift to Ladybug from Lady L...thank you, Lady L.).

Thankfully, baby Boo decided he wanted a nap (really, he did), so we laid him down in his bed, turned on some sweet classical music, lit a vanilla candle, and sat down to pleasant repast. We started with a prayer to bless the food, then taught the girls how to serve tea using their tiny tea pots. It took some practice, but by the third tiny tea cup, both Ladybug and Firefly were scarcely spilling a drop.

Isn't it adorable that they wanted to use the tiny tea sets instead of regular-sized cups?

I just love Ladybug's pinky finger...soooo refined! ;-)

Nanny and I enjoyed talking with the little girls about delightful little girl things during our time with them. In between our amiable chatting:

• We showed them how to take only half of what your eyes tell you they want, then to ask for more when you are done with that
• We demonstrated how to put their napkins on their laps and use them to dab at their lips when needed.
• Firefly swallowed her tea the wrong way a few times and got to practice the etiquette of coughing into her napkin, face away from the table.
• We practiced NOT talking with our mouth full.
• We explained why it is rude to reach across someone to get something you want, and helped them learn to ask, "Please pass the sugar," and "May I please have another slice of cake" with a sweet voice.
• We taught them what topics are approriate for the table, and which ones are not (though I don't think it is really the girls who need help in this area...at least not at our house. Maybe we will have to include the boys next time!).
• Lastly, we explained how a pleasant expression and an agreeable disposition says more about you than a hundred words can...and how kind words make your company feel welcome.

Here we all are in our dining room, just about ready to start the fun!

Our tea time was a time of learning manners, but also a time of pleasantries and fun. I will cherish the precious memories forever. I am so glad we had our tea time. I can't wait until it is time for the next one. We will have to invite friends next time, so the girls can practice their manners in company.

I hope you have a blessed day...and don't forget to take time for tea in your busy week. You will be glad you did!

Blessings,

Heather

I think Firefly learned the lesson about having a pleasant expression!

-------------------------------------------- 

Bran Muffins (modified from the classic All-Bran recipe)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees

Sift together:

• 1 1/4 cup flour (I used 3/4 cup freshly milled white wheat flour, 1/2 cup white flour)
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 tbs. Baking Powder

• 1/4 tsp. salt (I used sea salt)
• 1/8 tsp. cinnamon

------------------------------

Put 1 1/4 cup milk in a different bowl
Add 2 cups bran cereal...you may use All-Bran, but bran flakes of any brand work (I do soak them a bit longer)

Soak for 10 minutes

-----------------------------

Add the following to the soaked cereal mixture:

• 1 large egg
• 1/2 cup chunky applesauce (you may use another type, but this one works very well to make a nicely textured muffin)
• 2 TBS oil
• if available, sometimes I add one diced apple (peeled and cored, of course)

Stir gently, then add flour mixture and mix until combined.

-----------------------------

Spray muffin sheet or line with papers, then fill each 2/3rds full. This works well with either 12 regular or 6 jumbo muffins.

Bake for 15-18 minutes. Test with a toothpick. Muffins will be firm, but the toothpick will not be entirely clean. These muffins are very moist and are delectable for breakfast topped with fresh butter. Enjoy!