Thinking About Pear Jelly

We’ve been reading Mr. Putter & Tabby Pick the Pears in our house and I’ve been looking for pear jelly in stores but oddly it is so far proving hard to find. So while like Mr. Putter I would like a kindly neighbor to bring me pies, tarts, cider, and jelly I may just have to make my own. Here are a bunch of recipe links I’ve found for when the day comes.

After some creative searching it seems that the method to make pear jelly is much the same as making any kind of jelly but since I’ve never made jelly or canned anything it’s all new to me. Essentially per Cooks.com: “Slice fruit fine. Use 4 cups fruit to 2 cups sugar. Bring to a boil and time for approximately 20 minutes. I test it from time to time by putting a small amount on a saucer and placing it in the freezer. When done, fill jars and let set for a day. Then melt wax and pour over top.”

This recipe walks you through all of it and it is the one I hope to use if a kindly neighbor doesn’t magically bring it over.  My hunch is that this is a solid basic recipe based on the fact that they want to encourage people to use the baskets of fruit they pick. It is a good intro to making fruit jelly.

Chutney is a big favorite of mine and here is a great looking recipe. It is slightly more complicated than just boiling down fruit with sugar but worth the effort.

Catalog Jigsaw Puzzles

We’ve been getting a lot of back-to-school catalogs in our house and came up with a quick project for a few minutes of fun that is simple to do. Simply cut a page of a catalog into a paper jigsaw puzzle. No worries about pieces gone missing, totally recyclable.

No real tips other than to make curvy puzzle-like cuts that interlock. You can’t make any mistakes with this one.

Bubble, bubble, no toil, no trouble - how to make your own bubble solution

We are going through a lot of bubble solution in our house and thought there must be a better way to keep a good supply than buying tiny bottles for between 2 and 5 dollars each that are simply poured on the ground by little hands. After an easy web search turns out there are easy ways to keep ourselves in soapy film at what looks like cents per gallon. A great selection of recipes is on an online shrine to bubble blowing devices and machines.  Here is a distillation of them.

All involve water, dishsoap, and either glycerin, cornsyrup, or sugar. Glycerin is the more popular choice but I guess the others serve the same purpose of extending the life of the water layer. For more on the science of bubbles click here.

Dawn and Joy seem to be the leading brands.  Looks like you can’t go wrong with these recipes.

2/3 cup Joy dishwashing soap
1 gallon water
2 to 3 tablespoons of glycerin

1/2 cup of dishwashing liquid (Dawn or Joy)
2 cups of water
2 teaspoons of sugar

For hardcore bubbling, the kind you might do dressed in tie-dye at a festival or get paid to do, you should check out a link to Big Bubble Magic for variations and adjustments for climate variations. They have a recipe for one with beer.  If you do master this contact us and perhaps we will hire you for a party. I say perhaps because these people seem to also be the type who would have bumper stickers that say “Big Bubblers for those that have discovered that size does matter” and we just don’t have room in our garden for your unicycle too.

There is also a lot of advice on making your own bubble wands and bubble makers.

• use pipe cleaners bent into interesting shapes
• cookie cutters
• yogurt lids with the centers cut out
• tin cans with the top and bottom cut off and edges smoothed
  
• For giant bubbles a string and a dowel. Instructions here.