Pear Butter

A couple of weeks ago, Dad dropped off a huge bag of pears that they had picked from a nearby pear tree. Two weeks later, they had finally ripened, so we made some pear butter. I used the same basic recipe as the apple butter we’ve made in the past, with a few modifications to the spices.

Ingredients and Method
8 lbs pears
3 cups water (may need less-I used 4 and it was too much)

Peel, core and chop pears. Cook in water until they break down (or until you get bored and hit them with an immersion blender). Measure out pulp. Add

1/2 cup sugar for ever 1 cup pulp (you may want to reserve a cup of sugar-I used 6 cups of sugar to 14 cups pulp and it was plenty sweet)
1 tsp ceylon cinnamon
1/2 tsp cassia cinnamon
1/2 tsp cloves
1/2 tsp freshly ground nutmeg
Juice of 1 lemon

Stir together, and let come to a boil. The butter is ready to jar when it sets up on a cold plate. For me, this yielded 10 8oz jars. I used about a 10 minute processing time.

The pear butter looks quite a bit like the apple butter, but a bit softer. The flavor profile is a bit more floral and a bit lighter.

Broccoli Curry Casserole

This is a modification of a recipe that Chris’ mom makes, a broccoli, chicken curry casserole. We both really enjoy it, but have been looking for a way to make it a bit healthier, and after a few versions of the sauce, I think we’ve come upon something that’s a good modification that doesn’t fundamentally change the flavor of the dish. A note about the sauce-I’m no fan of canned “cream of…” soups, but this recipe does call for them. If you have time, you can make a white sauce with some chicken demiglace in it instead. If you don’t have an extra hour for that, go with the soups.

Ingredients
2 heads broccoli
2 chicken breasts (about 1 lb)
1/2 cup mayo
1/2 cup greek yogurt (in the future, we’ll probably try this with 1/4 cup mayo and 3/4 cup yogurt)
2 cans cream of chicken soup (low sodium, if at all possible)
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
Juice of 1 lemon
2 tbsp curry (or to taste)

Method
Cube chicken, and brown it in a small amount of canola oil over medium heat. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. While the chicken cooks, trim the broccoli and cut into florets (peel and cube the stems too-they’re super tasty as well). Steam or boil the broccoli until al dente. When the chicken is browned, spread that, along with the broccoli into a 9×13″ pyrex pan. Mix remaining ingredients together, reserving about 1/2 of the cheese for the top. Pour sauce over broccoli and chicken. Cover with aluminum foil and bake for 30 minutes. Remove foil and allow cheese to brown, 10-15 minutes. We will usually serve with basmati rice.

Yep, it’s a casserole, but it’s quite tasty and a great dinner for a cloudy rainy day.

Fauxreos

About a year ago, Chris and I made a couple of batches of homemade oreo style cookies. At the time, we forgot to post the recipe to the blog, so now we’re remedying that mistake. We made a batch of these, original recipe found here, last night. I’ll repost here with our modifications.

Ingredients
Cookies
1 cup + 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
3/4 cup butter
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 large egg
1 tablespoon cold water
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups AP flour
3/4 cup black cocoa or Dutch-process cocoa (we use 1/4th of a cup of black, and 1/2 a cup of regular Dutch-process)

Filling
1/2 packet unflavored gelatin
2 tbsp water
1/2 cup vegetable shortening
2 1/2 cups confectioners sugar
1 tsp vanilla (or to taste)

Method
Cookies
Preheat oven to 325 degrees, and line baking sheets with parchment paper. Cream together butter, sugar and salt. Add egg, water and vanilla. Add flour and cocoa. The dough will be stiff. Roll out penny sized balls of dough. Press with a cocoa dusted glass until 1/16″ to 1/8″ thick. Bake 14 minutes, or until done. It will be difficult to determine if these cookies burn, so pay attention to the smell. As the cookies cool, prepare the filling.

Bloom the gelatin in water, once bloomed, bring to a boil. The mixture should be clear and completely smooth. Let come to room temperature. As that cools, cream together shortening, sugar and vanilla. Add the gelatin mixture, and cream until smooth and fluffy. Fill cookies with about a teaspoon of the filling, and enjoy with a nice cold glass of milk. We got around 50 sandwiches out of one recipe (with some leftover filling).

These are cookies are remarkably similar to Oreos, although I think that the cookies themselves taste much better. We’ve done this recipe with all Splenda as well, and it works quite well. The cookies are a little more crumbly than the sugar version, but still quite nice. The filling can be modified as well, by adding some cocoa powder or melted chocolate, depending on preference, to make a chocolate filling. I’ve read some recipes that use the same basic filling, but add a couple of tablespoons of creamy peanut butter to make a peanut butter filling. I have yet to try that, so I’m not sure how well it would work.