I Hope She Likes Pear Sauce

It's that time of the year again. Summer is almost over. The rain has been back a few times, we've switched out flip flops for rain boots on many occasions, and instead of blueberries and strawberries, we've been picking apples and pears. Many of our pears were starting to go bad, so last weekend while my mom was here, we made our first batch of apple and pear sauce. Yesterday, we made another big batch. While I love apple sauce, I'm not a huge fan of pear sauce, but it made for excellent baby food when Noah was a baby. I hope baby #2 loves it as much as he did. If not on its own, it was always great to mix in with veggies as a sweetener. When he was older, he'd have oatmeal with pear sauce for breakfast almost every day for a while. This year, I haven't had any luck getting him to try either; he has no idea what he's missing out on. 

Here's how we made it: 

Cut up apples and pears. Find lots of worms and ear wigs. Don't be grossed out if you cut them in half. Remove all bruises, keep all the good parts. Don't worry about peeling them, I think it's too much work, and while I've never tried it peeled, I'm pretty sure that's where a lot of the flavor is. At least that's what I tell myself. 

Rinse off in cold water, put in a large pot, and start heating it up. I cooked the pears uncovered because they had so much water in them and I really needed them to cook down. For the apples however, I even added a good amount of water; at first to prevent them from burning on the bottom of the pan, later to help with the consistency. I left the lid on for the apples to keep all the moisture in. 

Once things are bubbling and the fruit is getting soft, stir things around quite a bit to make sure everything cooks somewhat evenly. Then use your hand mixer to puree everything. Last year, we just used a potato masher. While it worked just fine, the sauce didn't get as nice and smooth as we wanted for baby food. Make it as smooth or chunky as you like. 

Fill into clean jars. We use different kinds and sizes, from canning jars we bought a couple of years ago, to pasta sauce jars we've been collecting. We also added some more small baby food sized ones to our collection this year. It always seems like we have way too many while they're stored away empty in the basement, but we filled up every last one yesterday. 

Screw on lids and boil in water for 16 minutes (don't ask me where that number comes from, it's what we go with. I've read 10 minutes is all it takes, but - better safe than sorry). 

Remove from water, wait for lids to pop and jars to cool down. Done. Enjoy! I had some apple sauce this morning with some 7 grain hot cereal which I prepared with dates, walnuts, and maple syrup. Delicious, sweet, and healthy! 

P.S. Notice our lovely new back splash in the kitchen? I'm in love!