Pear Pepper Jelly
One of my small pleasures in life is finding some odd things that pair well with other odd things. Not even necessarily odd things, just really two things you wouldn’t always juxtapose. This recipe is a perfect example. One year I was gifted a large amount of Anjou pears from a relative’s tree. Although I will eat them raw, pears are not at the top of my list of favorite hand fruits. So, that left me with cooking a bunch.
I am sorry to say, I did have a few failures before I stumbled upon the pepper jelly idea. I attempted a hand pie (the less said about that the better) and I even tried a pear bbq sauce which wasn’t terrible but still not something I wished to share with anyone else. That’s when the jelly idea came to me. Initially it was to be a regular, sweet, fruit preserve. However, it just so happened that not long before, I had also been given a pretty good handful of banana peppers. So, for the sake of attempting to utilize all I had, this recipe was born. I added jalapeños simply for heat but if you have different varieties of peppers laying around feel free to experiment. Just always be careful because you never know what kinda heat you’re talking about with peppers, especially the home grown kind. I always try a little nibble before I add it to a dish.
Ingredients
- 2 cups diced pears
- 3 banana peppers diced
- 2 jalapeños diced
- 3/4 cup water
- 1 1/2 cups vinegar
- pinch salt
- pinch black pepper
- pinch cayenne pepper
- 1.5 tablespoons pectin
- 1 cup sugar
Instructions
Combine pears, banana peppers, jalapeños, water, and vinegar in a pot. Simmer until veggies are tender. Mash with back of spoon. Add salt, pepper, cayenne, and pectin. Bring to rolling boil (until the boil can’t be stirred down). Stir constantly. When you get to a rolling boil, add the sugar. Stir till dissolved. Bring back to boil. Boil hard for 1 minute then remove from heat. Ladle into jars. Process or let cool and refrigerate.