Pear Sauce

Yup. You read that right. It's just like Apple sauce....only with pears. It's very good & very easy & needs very little (if any) sugar added.

Take 3-5 pounds of pears (I think I did about 15 pears yesterday), peel, core, and cut them into eighths. As I'm cutting the up, I soak the pear slices in cold water with about a 1/4 cup of lemon juice. Put pear slices in your crock-pot with abut 2/3 cup water (I use the water they're soaking in, so there's a little lemon juice in it as well), cover and cook on high until pears are very soft. Depending on how ripe they are it can take from 3 to 6 hours.

Cool pears off then run them through a food mill or food processor until they're consistency you want. I added about a teaspoon of cinnamon to the entire batch and one or two tablespoons of sugar if it's needed. Then you can either divide it up & freeze it or can it.

I processed mine in a hot water canner for about 30 minutes.

If anyone's interested, let me know & I'll post the recipe for Pear Butter (think Apple butter) that you can make from this point. I've not made it yet, but I plan on trying it soon.

mushroom sauce for beef roast

I made my very first oven-baked top sirloin roast yesterday. I rubbed it in a garlic/ginger rub, and added salt pepper, and worscestshire sauce to it before sticking it in the oven at 325. Pretty standard. It turned out a tad dry, but it was only a 1.3 pounder.

Anyway, since it was a bit dry, I decided the sauteed mushrooms and red onions needed to be in more of a broth or thin gravy.

I sauteed them as normal (lots of butter, about 1 tsp minced garlic), then I added about 1/2 c vegetable broth, 1/2 c Sutter Home Merlot, and a little water. I used flour to thicken it just a smidge. I also added salt and pepper and garlic powder to taste.

Sorry it's not more of a recipe format, but that's what happens when you throw something together. Anyway, hubby and I were pleased with the results, and Baby Bear LOVED the mushrooms.