The fall canning season is now upon us. These are pears from our Bartlett Pear tree but you can purchase them from farmers markets, etc….

Preserving pears is a bit more work than peaches. You need to peel the pears with a paring knife, but a potato peeler will work too. You can use a citric acid or Fruit Fresh type product to keep them from turning brown. I used a 1/4 teaspoon citric acid (You also could use ascorbic acid add as much as needed listed on container) in each quart canning jar before canning.) See Citric Acid or Ascorbic Acid for your preference to use in pears

See Utah State University Extension and/or Ball Blue Book for information on proper bottling/canning Pears

Also see Preserving Peaches and Peaches for Baby Food

Bartlett Pears

Preparing Pears for bottling, drying and for puréed pears

*Ripe pears
*Wash all pears
*Peel, cut in half/slice, remove centers
*Place cut pears in lemon water, 2 tablespoons Lemon Juice to 5 cups Water

Follow directions in each individual preserving pear process.

See the above link for Canning/Bottling Pears

Freezing Pears for Baby

*Wash Pears
*Peel, slice and remove centers, see the above pictures
*Place cut sliced or halved pears into a glass bowl lemon water (2 tablespoons of lemon juice to 5 cups of water) until ready to purée and then drain off lemon water and purée. Pour purée into ice-cube trays for easy portion size or Ziploc Freezer bags which you could also use in smoothies or etc…. and freeze.

After pears are frozen in ice-cube trays remove from trays and label Ziploc Freezer bag/bags and double bag. (I used a regular bread plastic bag first placing puréed pear cubes in bread bag and then in labeled freezer Ziploc bag.) and back in the freezer they go until ready to use or up to three months.

Freezing and drying Pear Slices

Follow the above for preparing pears.

Freezing Pear Slices

*Fruit Fresh, follow instructions on bottle of how much to use, if desired
*Place prepared slice into labeled Ziploc freezer bag, remove air ( I use a straw) and place in freezer until ready to use or up to 4 months.

Note: You can put simple syrup on your pears before freezing but I didn’t want the extra sugar.

Drying Pears in Food Dehydrator

Follow the same process in Preparing Pears and after draining pear slices from lemon water, add fruit fresh if desired to pear slices and place slices onto your dehydrator trays. Follow the directions on your dehydrator for thickness of slices and drying time.

Place dried pear slices in a Ziploc bag with a Food Safe Moisture Packet.

Note: For yearlong storage of dried fruit remove all air from package/Ziploc bag and refrigerate after opening.

Enjoy!

Lindy and Jessica

So many peaches, so many different uses, we hope you like some of the following ideas that will help with your preserving your peaches.

There is no set amount of peaches to use, adjust to how many peaches you have.

Note: We Blanched all the peaches with all the following peach preserving ideas listed below. We removed the peach skins by bringing a stainless steel stock pot of water to boiling stage and added our rinsed off ripe peaches (5-6) into the boiling water (You can make an X cut in the bottom of each peach before placing them into hot water to help with skin removal) 1-2 minutes or until skins loosen. Remove peaches with large wire draining spoon or slotted spoon, having a bowl ready with cold water and some ice to cool off peaches quickly, remove skins, stone/pit and slice or purée.

See BHG for step by step pictures for blanching peaches.

Also see Preserving Peaches and Peaches for Baby Food

Sliced Peaches for Freezing

Slice skin free peaches and add them to a bowl of lemon water (2 tablespoons lemon juice with around 5 cups water) this helps the peaches to not turn brown. Drain off lemon water from sliced peaches and place on a parchment paper covered half baking sheet or baking sheet of your choice. We Layered each baking sheet with 3 layers of sliced peaches, adding a piece of parchment paper between each layer and placed the peach sliced filled baking sheet flat in the freezer overnight or until peaches are completely frozen.

Remove frozen peach slices from the freezer and place the amount of sliced peaches desired in freezer bags. We double bagged a generous two cups of the peach slices.

Usually around 4 cups of sliced peaches are used for a 9 inch pie.

When peaches are frozen separately they are easier to use in portion amounts for smoothies, yogurt and etc….

Note: We used wax paper but parchment paper probably would be less messy and wouldn’t rip as easily. Freezer paper would probably work well too.

Drying Sliced Peaches with Dehydrator

Follow the above freezing recipe except after draining peach slices place them on dehydrating trays and place trays in your Dehydrator and follow the directions with your Dehydrator. Ours took about 2 1/2 days to dry this depending on thickness of your peaches etc….

We bagged our dried peach slices in a Ziploc bag with a food safe moisture packet or you could remove all the air with a Vacuum food sealer.

Puréed Peaches and Bagged Sliced Frozen Peaches

Puréed Peaches

Purée peaches in the blender adding Fruit Fresh produce protector if desired for preventing browning, following the directions on container.
Place in containers desired and freeze. We used quart sized bags and two cups of puréed peaches to use for sauces, smoothies and etc……

Bagged and Sliced Frozen Peaches

We used Quart Ziploc Bags adding 4 cups of peaches; you can also add Fruit Fresh (following direction on container) or lemon juice to prevent browning.

Puréed Peaches for Baby Food

We (blanched peaches and removed skins and stone/pit) puréed peaches in blender and poured purée in ice-cube trays, freeze and when frozen remove frozen peach cubes, double bag in gallon sized bags and place back into freezer still frozen until ready to use or you can keep frozen cubes in the freezer up to 3 months.

Note: Do not re-freeze thawed baby food and check with your doctor the appropriate time to introduce peaches into a baby’s diet.

Enjoy your Harvest!

Lindy and Jessica