Scrumptious Preserved Ginger Pears

I remember vividly the first time I tried it. From who I was with, to the lighting in the restaurant. I was nervous - this was my first exploration into the land of sushi. I was with an old, dear friend; Blair Shimbashi. I figured if anyone would steer me down the path to good sushi, it would be Blair. I was not a very adventurous eater as a child. In fact one might say that I swayed closer to the term 'picky' than I did adventurous.

It wasn't until I was in University that I was brave enough to try Thai food and I was well past university when I decided I was ready for sushi.

To my surprise and Blair's delight, I loved it. I gobbled up everything on my plate; from the tuna to the eel. I couldn't get enough washabi, but the one thing that stopped me in my tracks was the ginger. I didn't like it. I am not sure if it was the texture, the aroma or the flavour, but there was something about it that turned me right off.

It took almost a decade until my taste buds changed their minds. And change their mind they did. I don't just suffer through or tolerate ginger now. I LOVE IT! I could add ginger to almost everything if given the chance.

A few years ago, a friend of mind knowing about my most recent love affair handed me a recipe for Ginger Pears. She had found it tucked in the back of a recipe book and she was uncertain of the source. Using Google Recipe Search, I was able to track it down to here. I can't be certain that is where she got it from, but it is pretty darn close.

Not to take away from the source that Google Recipe gave me, but I am going to share the recipe with you as she shared it with me. There are subtle differences and I think the yield in her recipe is much more accurate.

I hope that the people that have signed up for my first canning class at The Depanneur are as crazy about Ginger as I am as we will be making this together in just a couple of nights.

Preserved Pears with Ginger

Ingredients

• 3 cups granulated sugar
• 3 cups water
• 3 tablespoons lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon lemon zest*
• 1 teaspoon fresh ginger, finely chopped or grated
• 2 lbs pears, cored, peeled, and quartered
• 3 tablespoons crystallized ginger, chopped (candied ginger)
• 3 or 4 500ml jars and lids

* Lemon zest is a necessary ingredient for this recipe, so please don’t leave it out. It provides natural pectin to the syrup and thickens the preserves.

Preparation:

Sterilize the 500ml jars and lids and set them aside.

In a large saucepan, heat the sugar, water, lemon juice, lemon zest, and fresh ginger to a boil. Lower the temperature so the mixture is simmering, and cook, stirring occasionally, for 10 minutes.

Add the quartered pears and crystallized ginger to the saucepan and continue cooking for 30 minutes, until the preserves thicken and coat a spoon.

Pack the pears and gingered syrup into the sterilized jars leaving ½” headspace. Wipe rims, apply lids and rings. Process jars in a boiling water bath canner for 10 minutes. This recipe yields 3 to 4, 500ml jars.

Goodbye to my Nona - she was one hell of a lady

Warning; This post is R rated due to inappropriate language

Just last weekend I was out in BC to help celebrate my Uncle Rudy and my Auntie Dena’s 50^th wedding anniversary. It was a great party, but also a really lovely weekend. All of my sisters ( except one) were able to make the trip with their husbands and kids. My cousins and all of their kids were there, friends of my Aunt and Uncle whom I have known my entire life were all in one room together celebrating love that has lasted 50 years. That in itself was a beautiful thing.

There were many changes this trip that took some getting used to as well. It would be my first time seeing my 96 year old Nona in a home. I was fortunate to have been able to spend the last Christmas with in her own home and we even washed dishes together.

Now my Aunt and Uncle have moved into her house and I had prepared myself to feel sad at not seeing her house the way I always remembered it. But walking  through to door, I felt nothing but happiness, it was like new life had been breathed into the bones of the house and I knew if Nona could see the changes and how happy my Aunt and Uncle were there, she too would have been happy.

I got to see Nona 3 times over the weekend. All of us made a trip out to see her at one point or another and she mentioned how happy she was to see us all. She had slowed down a lot even from when I saw her at Christmas, but she was still Nona and managed to make us all laugh. My sister, my nephew,  my mom and I had gone for a visit and when we arrived, Nona was asleep on the chair in her room with her feet up on a foot stool. We woke her and she lowered her feet to the floor so that we would all have somewhere to sit. My sister on the stool, mom on a chair and my nephew and I on the edge of her bed. Even though we had just woken her up, she was alert and interested in the  stories we were telling her about the party.

When it was time to leave, we asked her if she wanted her feet back up on the stool and she said ‘Not til we are done with kisses.”. It made me laugh out loud. We each gave her a kiss and told her how much we loved her and then we lifted her feet back up onto the stool and left the room.

My Nona was always saying things that made me laugh. She had the tremendous ability to laugh at herself, which I have been told by her health care workers is something to be cherished in someone her age.

Just over 20 years ago now, I had just moved to Toronto and I was dating a guy named Andrew. Mom and Nona had come for a visit, she would have been in her 70’s at this point and we had decided to go watch him play soccer this one summer afternoon. It was hot. Toronto hot, and it was humid.

We arrived as they were still warming up and we took our place on the bleachers. There wasn’t a lick of shade and very little breeze. I could tell the heat was getting to both my mom and my nona. I noticed a tree at the end of the field behind the goalie and suggested we relocate to the grass and watch the game from there.

We settled down onto the grass just as the team began to take practice shots on net. Each time the ball managed to sneak past the goalie, he would curse. Fuck, shit, son of a bitch, etc. And each time he would curse my mom would “tsk” and inhale to show her disgust. This went on for what was longer than seemed possible until finally, I said “If his language is bothering you, we could go sit back on the bleachers”. My nona shifted her weight, leaned back and crossed her arms and said with an ever so slight Italian accent “He can Fuck all he want, I’m not moving from the shade”.

The response was instantaneous. My mother and I erupted in fits of laughter. I had never heard my nona use that word before, but it had just flew out of her mouth with such emphasis. It was amazing.

Suffice it to say, we watched the game in the shade.

A few years later (Nona was in her late 70’s at this point)  when I was living in England, my sister, mom and nona came over for a visit and we all went to Italy together. We went to the town where my Nona had been born and we saw the house she grew up in, took her around to call on old friends and went and spent time with relatives I had never met before.

On our road trip we stopped at a gas station along the way to get some lunch and use the rest rooms. Nona, my sister and I all rushed to the ladies room as it had been a long time between stops, we opened the stall door and discovered that there was no toilet but merely a ceramic hole in the floor. This was new to all of us and we asked Nona if she was going to need some help. She said no and that she would be fine, she entered and closed the door. A few minutes later, the door opens and Nona emerges with a slight smile on her face. She looks at us and says “Bulls eye”.

That was Nona. Always making you laugh when you least expected it.

I got a call from my mom last night. My nona had her dinner and sat in the dining room at the home for a bit and then she went off to her room. For whatever reason, a nurse poked her head in to check-in  on her and Nona had passed away.

It was how I always wanted her to go, quietly in her sleep without suffering. I suppose I got what I wanted, but it doesn’t make saying good bye any easier.

She was a one of a kind lady and I know that each and every one of her kids and grand kids is feeling a huge loss today. But we can all remember how made us smile even when she was washing our elbows in the tub with Comet and an SOS pad, how she could fill a house with the smell of fresh baked bread, how we would help her roll the home made gnocchi with a fork in her kitchen, how until her late 60’s she never told us she loved us, but would always respond “Me Too”, how she hand plucked every dandelion that dared to show it’s face on her lawn. The list is long.

Nona – you were one of a kind and you will be missed.

It's time for the showcase showdown

 

Taste testers, this is just a little preview as to what you will be receiving in the coming week. On the left are the Preserved Peaches. I am extremely interested to try these beauties myself as this is the first time I have ever preserved peaches this way. What makes this particular jar of peaches unique is that there is a little pectin in the liquid so the juice from the peaches combined with the pectin should make for a firmer, perhaps almost jelly like consistency. Whereas the smaller jar on the right is my fall-back-all-time-favourite recipe and it is simple - peaches in a light syrup.

I am excited to be delivering these babies along with a little handout that explains what I would like you to do and the types of information I will be looking to get from you.

Wake those tastebuds up and grab a bowl and a spoon!

Preserved Peaches vs Peaches in light syrup

I was kind of panicking last week when I realized that it was mid August and I still had not canned my yearly stash of peaches. A couple of months ago I opened my last jar of peaches that I had put away this time last year and there was no way I was going to go a full year without a steady supply.

I went out and bought fresh Ontario peaches, laid them out on my table in the basement and sat down to peruse some recipes to decide what I would do with them this year.

I have my 'go to' recipe of peaches in a light syrup that I make every year. It is tried and true, but surely there are other delicious things to do with peaches besides this and jam.

I came across a recipe for Preserved Peaches and the fact that it contained pectin caused me to pause and think about what it might taste like. I decided I needed to find out. Over the next couple of days the kitchen was a flurry of activity as I blanched, peeled, sliced and preserved peaches. I now have several cases of both recipes in my cool room and in a couple of weeks time once the flavours have settled I will be giving each of the amazing 'taste tester' volunteers a jar of each to try and review. At that point in time, I will share the recipes as well as the reviews from the taste testers.

Taste testers - get your forks or spoons ready. Your first samples will be ready in early September.

Taste Testers Wanted

Throughout the months of September, October and November Manning Canning is going to be busy in the test kitchen experimenting with new recipes to see how they can be improved, bring out new flavours, reduce the amounts of sugar used, etc. But we are also going to pit recipes against one another to see which recipe is the better of the two.

If you believe yourself to have a discerning palette, are willing to taste test several different preserves; be it pickle, jam, relish or jelly and are also willing to share your honest feedback and have me share it with others in any of my on-line spaces, let me know. Unfortunately at this point in time, I can only open this opportunity up to those in the Greater Toronto Area. Just enter your name and why you are interested in being a Manning Canning Taste Tester in the comment section below as well as the best way to contact you.

And if you are interested, the first recipe battle will be Peach Preserves vs Canned peaches in a light syrup.