It’s pear season, and what better to do with LOTS of pears, than make yummy preserves out of them to last us into the winter! This particular variety of pear is called the Ure Pear. They turn a greenish yellow as they ripen and are very juicy!

For this event, OFRE volunteers met on a Monday evening and together made 2 delicious jam recipes:

• Pear & Vanilla Bean Jam
• Pear & Ginger Jam

The Pear & Vanilla Bean Jam recipe uses real vanilla beans that are first scraped out to remove all the beany goodness inside and then the beans and scraped bits are put to simmer in the pot with the pears. The smell of this jam on the stove is heavenly! After the beans have simmered, they are removed and the jam is pureed in the blender to make a smooth saucy jam. Molly declared it’s quite amazing on ice cream!

The Pear & Ginger Jam recipe uses chopped crystallized ginger and keeps the pear chunks in whole form, so the slices end up suspended in the jam. Crystallized ginger as  well as the whole vanilla beans can be found at the Italian Centre Shop. The scent of the ginger awakens you senses and is a nice complement to the pear. This recipe was my mom’s recipe and I always loved this jam. Thanks for sharing mom!

We strive to teach OFRE volunteers canning basics at our workshops, which means volunteers get involved in all aspects of the process from: chopping, stirring, mixing, and canning. It’s always a pleasure to host these events because many of our volunteers have experience doing as well as an interest in canning. We all seem to learn something new from each other at our canning events, which makes if quite fun for everyone.

Both jams turned out really nicely and their was enough for everyone to take home 1 jar of each kind. The new jams have been also been a hit at our stand @ the Alberta Avenue Farmers Market.