Pickled and spiced pears

One of our pear trees 'Concorde' has finally decided to give us some fruit of which we are very grateful (about time).

Being a bit short of time today we decided to pickle them whole (saves loads of chopping time).

The recipe is really easy.

Take soft brown sugar and cider vinegar and chuck in a pan with the spices you fancy, we used cinnamon, anise and cloves and a few slices of lemon.

Make sure there is enough liquid to cover the pears you want to pickle. A good way to do this is to pop the pears into the receptacles

where they are going to live and top up with cold water. Measure the volume of water by draining into a measuring jug. Make this amount of pickling liquor.

Bring the liquor to a simmer and let it bubble for a bit to release the flavour of the spices

In the meantime peel the pears but leave the stalk on and pop into cold water.

When you have all the pears peeled the liquor should be smelling pretty tasty so pop the pears into your (sterilized) jars and cover with the hot pickling liquor.