Good-bye, Mr. Fig

 Julia came in the house last night and said to us, "You know the fig tree fell over, right?"
No, we didn't.

 The tree was huge, and the vast majority of the fruit was inaccessible to us, it was so high. Adam was planning to cut off these long branches after it bore this summer anyway.

 The root ball lifted a bit from the soil. We had lots of heavy rain this past weekend, and the heavily-loaded branches were hanging low.

 Look at all that green fruit! What a shame!
Only 3 or 4 were ripe and plump. Most were small and green.

Part of the tree is intact, so it will grow again and be a more manageable size.
But y'know what? I have five pints of fig preserves left from last year. My mother loves it, and I take it to her, and I've given some away, but I don't prefer fig preserves, myself.
I now prefer pear butter, of course! I canned five and a half more pints!

 And regarding tomato paste, I made another batch. This time I didn't freeze it all in a bag together. I dolloped it by tablespoons on a cookie sheet and froze them.

 Then I pried them off with a spatula, put them in a freezer bag, and back into the freezer they went, easier to use.
Friends gave us some beautiful corn, which we took off the cob and froze as well.

The deep freezer and the canning shelves are getting fuller and fuller!

Making Pear Butter

We have a pear tree. Remember when Adam was lopping big limbs out of the top of it?
He's lopped off branches twice now, and will do it once more. This summer I picked fruit from it, although most of the pears are too high for me to reach. I decided to make pear butter!
First I put the pears in the frig for 24 hours, as many websites said to do. Then I laid them out on the guest bed on newspaper for a week to ripen some. Then I washed them in water and baking soda.

 It's not a huge amount of pears, maybe one somewhat full plastic grocery bag.  But I didn't want a huge project, and if the pear butter turned out horrible, I didn't want to waste ingredients and jars.
Pears are bland, so this is perhaps better called "spice butter." The pears are just a carrier fruit. I also put in two apples that were sitting around, unloved. I cooked and processed it just like apple sauce/butter.
Except -- I added more sugar, more spices, and lemon, orange (about 1/2 cup), and lime juice. All recipes said to add citrus for flavor; most instructed to add orange zest, which I may do next time.

 For spices, I used a cinnamon/clove/nutmeg/allspice blend. It needs more spices than you'd imagine, but you don't want a bland spread. And about a teaspoon of salt; don't forget that! And I mean to say ... ohmygoodness, it's worth it!

I'd been taste-testing it as I cooked it (in the crockpot), and was doubtful. It had just a bit of the grainy texture of pears, and the flavor was just a little odd. But this morning I put it on an English muffin with butter. Wowzer! It's better than any jam in our frig! It's better than my homemade apple butter! This stuff is the bomb.
So now we're going out with a ladder to get more fruit, and I'll begin the process all over again. I'll have this yumminess all winter long!
[Two notes: Pears should be picked before they seem ripe. If you wait until they feel ripe on the outside, they'll be rotten on the inside. Also, cooking any fruit butter in the crockpot requires you to cook it on high for an hour (to raise the temperature initially) and then cook it on low for many hours (like 10, all day long or overnight). Do not put a lid on it either time; the thickening occurs as the moisture evaporates from the pot.]