I sell baked goods and preserves at my local farmers' market, and my bestseller is my special onion-garlic-hot pepper jelly. I can sell up to a case a week, so as you can imagine, I make a LOT of it! And yesterday, I also made the most delicious apricot pepper jelly for the first time. Both recipes call for liquid pectin, and as many have expressed, it's not always easy to get a good set. Over the years, with trial and error, I have figured out the secret. Certo tells you to boil the fruit, add the pectin, then bring it back to the boil "for exactly one minute." But one minute is just not enough to reach a good jelling stage on pepper jelly. After adding the pectin, I boil mine for about FIVE minutes, or until the bubbles look very thick as they boil and I start to meet a slight bit of resistance as I stir the jelly. Another thing to look for, I find, is that the jelly should start setting up a bit even before you get all of the jars filled, wiped down, and the lids put on. If it's completely liquid even after it starts to cool down, you might be in trouble. However, if the occasional batch of pepper jelly doesn't set up, there is a pretty simple fix. Just open the jars, dump the jelly back into the pot and boil it hard again for 3-5 minutes before jarring it back up. You'll lose a jar in the process (due to evaporation), but it's better than remaking the jelly with extra vinegar and sugar, which yields a product that is way too cloyingly sweet to me and wastes an additional packet of pectin to boot. Trust me...I do this all the time, and it works like a charm! Happy high canning season, everyone! --Gina (lindseysluscious.blogspot.com) Here is a link that might be useful: Lindsey's Luscious

Realizing of course that this thread is several years old, the way these pears were dismissed is rather odd for a forum dedicated to the harvest. I too think it would be a shame to waste the pears. They are probably some wild type of pear, perhaps related to seckel pears. Lots of pears don't soften, such as bosc and asian pears. There are lots of things you can do with them, I Googled "seckel pear" and found all kinds of recipes. A lot of the so called "hard" pears were for keeping for a long time, and soften and sweeten very much upon cooking. Bosc is a prime example. I would have a blast experimenting with those pears. I'd try a chutney, pickled, mixed in with applesauce, and as a preserve. I'd also try baking them to see if the flavor improved. And pear wine, that would be fun. It is one of the only kinds of wine I am allowed to drink, since I have to be on a low acid diet. Not sure if I'd tackle that, but since messing with produce to preserve it is my hobby, I would definitely try at least one experiment. Years ago I took some pears off of a tree my neighbor deemed "too hard" and inedible, and I made pear cardamom butter out of them. They were in fact seckel pears. The tree was a wild tree and the pears weren't very elegant looking, but tasted fine. Heirloom pears were a lot harder and smaller since folks needed fruit that would keep over the winter without refrigeration.

Substituting honey for molasses? Depends on how much is used in the bread. If it's a yeast or quick bread and the amount is less than 1/2 c., probably no problem using honey for molasses, but when using equal amounts, you'll find more sweetening from the same amount of honey as you would get from molasses. Be aware that foods brown quickly when using honey. To adjust for over-browning, reduction of temperature by 25° is sometimes advised (especially when the amount of honey is 1/2 cup or more), or you can cover your bread with a tent of foil for a period of time, to prevent over-browning or even burning before it's completely baked. Molasses (blackstrap) is 70% sucrose and is about one-half as sweet as sugar. While honey is fructose, glucose, and sucrose and can be 20% to 60% sweeter than white sugar, but with a composition very similar to table sugar. So if substituting large amounts of molasses with honey, you may need to reduce the amount of honey because it's much sweeter than molasses. You could also try using 1/2 molasses and 1/2 honey. Molasses does add some flvoring, as well as coloring. I'll add information about sorghum (aka sorghum syrup/sorghum molasses) for Jan "gourd friends". While molasses is made from sugar cane or sugar beets, sorghum comes from the sorghum plant and it's properties are very similar to those of black-strap molasses and are good substitutes one for another. Watch out for "blended" sorghum products. Many are cut with high-fructose corn syrup, which makes it sweeter than plain old sorghum. You can add to this syrupy mix, 100% pure cane syrup (like Steen's), treacle (another name for molasses), golden syrup, and maple syrup. All can usually be substitutes one for the other, but all have different flavors and will differ in sweetness. There are a number of substitions that can be made for molasses; for a cup of molasses the following may be used (with varying degrees of success): 1 cup honey, or ¾ cup firmly packed brown sugar, or 1 cup dark corn syrup, 1 cup granulated sugar with 1/4 cup water, or 1 cup pure maple syrup. -Grainlady

This salad is worth making just to have the candied walnuts. You can substitute Stilton for the Blue cheese. Ann Home Cookin Chapter: Recipes From Thibeault's Table Pear Salad with Spicy Candied Walnuts ===================================== Salad Celia Source: JS Online 1/2 cup candied spiced walnuts (see recipe) 1 cup Zinfandel dressing (see recipe) 1/2 cup high-quality blue cheese, crumbled 1/2 pound assorted baby greens (arugula, baby frisee, baby lolla rossa) or mesclun mix Make candied spiced walnuts and Zinfandel dressing first. After the pears have been poached, cut them into quarters and slice each quarter into four slices. Fan the slices, forming a half moon, and place in the center of a plate. Toss the greens with enough of the dressing to coat the greens. Using too much will wilt the greens. Place the tossed greens in the crescent of the pear. Sprinkle with crumbled cheese and candied walnuts. Drizzle some of the remaining dressing around the perimeter of the greens. This salad could also be presented family-style with all the ingredients simply tossed together in a bowl and served on a platter. Makes 8 servings. Zinfandel dressing 1 1/2 cups Zinfandel (divided) 1/2 cup sugar 1 cinnamon stick, about 3 inches long 20 turns fresh ground pepper (about 1 teaspoon) 2 tablespoons kosher salt 2 Anjou pears, peeled and cored 2 tablespoons Dijon-style mustard 2 tablespoons champagne vinegar 1/2 cup canola oil Combine 3/4 cup Zinfandel, sugar, cinnamon stick, pepper and salt in a small pan and bring to a simmer. Simmer very slowly until the liquid thickens and becomes similar to a syrup. This will take 1 to 11/2 hours. If mixture reduces too fast, it will become bitter. Dressing can be done in advance to this point, then refrigerated. When ready to complete, add pears and return syrup to a simmer. Spoon liquid over them or turn them frequently. Pears are done when they are soft and easily pierced with a fork, about 45 minutes. Remove pears from the syrup and store in a covered container. Reserve the poaching liquid to finish the vinaigrette. Combine remaining 3/4 cup wine and reserved Zinfandel syrup and bring to a simmer. Reduce mixture by two-thirds. You should end up with about one-third cup. It should be thick and syrupy. Transfer mixture into a stainless steel bowl and whisk in mustard and vinegar. While continuously whisking, very slowly stream in canola oil. If this step is done too fast, the oil will not emulsify. Transfer to a covered container and refrigerate. Spicy candied walnuts 1 cup sugar (divided) 1/2 cup water 1/2 cup walnut halves 2 teaspoons cayenne pepper 2 teaspoons kosher salt 1 teaspoon black pepper Combine 1/2 cup sugar and water in a small saucepan and bring to a slow boil. Reduce to a simmer and add walnuts. Mix spices and remaining 1/2 cup sugar in a medium stainless steel bowl. When walnuts have begun to soften, after about 8 minutes, strain them out of the liquid and transfer them immediately to the spice mixture. Shake them around in the bowl until they have been completely covered with the mix. Sift them out of the spice blend, saving the spices for making this dish again or for another use. Transfer nuts to an airtight container, but do not refrigerate. Servings: 4 Exported from Home Cookin 5.2b (www.mountain-software.com)