First, wash your pears.
Then peel the pears.
Remove any bad spots from the fruit.
Slice, cut out the hard pit section, then chop into small-ish pieces.
In the meantime, make sure you have some mason jars cleaned, sanitized and HOT. The easiest way to do this is to run them through the dishwasher.
Once you have all of your pears peeled and cut up, put them into a large pot along with the vanilla.Fill it with just enough water to keep the pears from scorching (an inch or so in the bottom of the pot), then cover and cook over medium or medium/low heat, or a simmer, stirring occasionally, until the pears are thoroughly soft. The next step is to puree the pears. I use a food strainer but you could also use an immersion blender.
Return the pureed pears to the pot. Taste to see if you need to add any sugar, though like I said I never have to sweeten it at all. Bring the pear sauce to a gentle boil.
While that’s heating, have your lids simmering in a small pot of water (not boiling!). You can see I have some jars in boiling water here as well, waiting to be used.
Once the pear sauce reaches a light boil, continue boiling as you fill the hot jars one at a time. Stir the sauce every now and then to prevent burning.
Start filling the jars with a ladle, and leave 1/2 inch headspace (fill the jars to within 1/2″ from the rim). After adding the pears, add the lemon juice and hot water.
Use a wet rag to wipe the rim of the jar clean. It’s important to wipe rims to make sure the pear mixture didn’t get all over the outside of the jar, which can affect canning safety.I usually dip a clean paper towel in the simmering lid water and run it over the rim after wiping, just to make sure there isn’t anything sticky still there.
Remove any air bubbles.
Now you’re ready to put the lid on. Using a lid lifter, retrieve a hot lid from the simmering water.
Next, place the lid on the jar...
Now screw on a clean ring to tighten down the lid...
Once all of your jars are filled and sealed, place them in a water canner . Fill the canner with enough water to cover the jars with 1-2″ of water. Put the lid on the canner, and bring to a steady rolling boil.
Continue to process pints or quarts at a steady boil for a processing time of 20 minutes. Once the time is up, use a jar lifter to remove the jars from the water bath canner.
Allow the jars to cool overnight, preferably on a rack.
After about 24 hours, remove the rings from the jars and try to pry the lids off with your fingers. If they do not come off, they’ve sealed and are safe to store.If a lid does come off you can either put the jar in the fridge to be eaten soon, or if you really want to store it up, you can pour the sauce back into a pot and put it over again in a new jar, with a new lid.
