Apple Pear Butter

 Last year was our first year of a fairly bountiful harvest of pears from our miniature tree.  The fruit was hard and not too flavoursome for fresh eating so I had to find a way to use it up.  After searching YouTube ( as you do ),  I found general instructions for pear butter.

This year we had the pears again but I was also given small green apples from a friend.  I decided to combine the two fruits and made this recipe up as I went along.

The result was a fruity yet slightly tangy spread.   It makes a delicious spread on toast,  crumpets and muffins.   Maybe you will find some other uses for it too.  Perhaps spread it on  dry crackers with a little Camembert cheese.

8 large Pears or 1 - 1.5 kilos

4 medium Green Apples or 0.5 - 1 kilos

1/2 cup of tap Water

Juice of 2 Lemons

1/2 cup of Brown Sugar

2 teaspoons of dried Cinnamon

1 teaspoon of dried Nutmeg 

Turn your slow cooker on low ( if it runs very hot ) or high if it's a very slow cooker 

Peel,  core and slice the pears and apples.

Place in the slow cooker.

Add all the other ingredients to the slow cooker.

Cook for 8 - 10 hours or overnight

Lift the lid and give it a good stir.

Use a stick blender to blitz the fruit until it's smooth.

Leave the slow cooker lid off and continue to cook for another 4 hours or so until some of the liquid has reduced.

Spoon into hot ,  sterilised jars and seal.

Store in the fridge for 2 - 3 weeks or freeze for longer storage.

The finished product

Getting the fruit ready

Cooking in the slow cooker

It's Citrus Season

At this time of the year, citrus fruit is in abundance and it's cheap. Here are some ideas to make the most of these fruits and to continue the money savings all year round.

* Eating oranges / mandarins it in the usual way for snacks.

* Cutting up oranges and freezing them for icy cold Summer snacks.

* Making 50 / 50 cordial. To have this yummy cordial all year round, zest and squeeze 3 oranges and 3 lemons per batch of cordial. Place the contents into a container or zip lock bag and freeze.

* Blitz a whole orange in a food processor to make whole orange cake. Blitz a few extra oranges, portion and freeze to make this yummy cake whenever you feel like a baking treat.

* Zest and juice lemons for lemon slice. Zest can be frozen in a container for up to a year. Alternatively freeze the zest in ice cube trays.

* Juice the lemons and freeze into ice cubes Then pop them out into containers for future baking / cooking.

* Use lemon juice to make lemon butter.  This is so yummy on toast and in tarts.  It's very quick and easy to make in the microwave and keeps for up to three weeks in the fridge.

*  Lemon chicken is quick and easy to make using lemon slices,  juice and seasonings.

*  Use the juice of a couple of lemons in jam making.

Other uses for lemon juice are -  lemon and pistachio biscuits, on pancakes, in  chicken flan, on fish and salmon patties or as a dressing on salads.

It's great to have these items on hand in the freezer. It stops the need to run to the supermarket for one lemon. I'll bet it would be out of season and you'd be paying premium prices.

If you haven't thought about it before, growing a lemon tree is great. It looks good, the blossoms and fruit smell divine and a bowl of lemons on the kitchen bench is a little ray of sunshine in the middle of Winter. It can be grown in a pot too. Best of all, you'll get your money back from the cost of a tree in no time.

So if anyone offers you a bag of lemons / oranges, or your neighbour has a tree with too much fruit for them to use, you'll know what to do with it.

Freshly picked lemons

Our tree

Lemon butter

Lemon slice

Whole orange cake

50 / 50 cordial

Lemon chicken

If you click on the purple writing it will  take you to the recipe on my blog.

How do you make the most of citrus fruit ?