What do you do when a friend gives you four 5-gallon buckets of ripe pears? You google “pears” of course!
Here are the creative ways that I found to use my unexpected bounty:
Pear Custard Pie
I made a couple of these and they were delicious! And very easy to make! I used my apple peeler/ slicer and had the pears cut up in no time!
Pear Vodka
I made this in late October by cutting up the pears, dropping them in inexpensive vodka and letting the pears infuse the vodka for almost 4 months. The pear flavored vodka that resulted made a wonderful French Pear Martini.
Pear Juice
As the pears reached peak ripeness, they needed to be used as quickly as possible. I ran them through my slow juicing machine which made wonderful pear juice with lots of pulp, but no skins or seeds. I froze single pints of juice in recycled plastic containers and thawed them in the refrigerator when I needed some juice. I experimented with putting vitamin C tablets in some of the batches. The ascorbic acid in the vitamin C prevented the juice from turning brown and made it even more healthy!
