Cranberry Pear Crisp

Gather your ingredients—you need to make this RIGHT NOW.

Now that's out of the way, I have a confession. Are you ready for this?

I have a deep, passionate, torrid, and terribly gratifying love affair with cranberries. It's almost an obsession. It's a fruit that grows beautifully in North America, has a distinct sweet/tart flavour, and, unfortunately, is harvested only two months out of the year. OK, here's a second confession: I buy them up when they're on sale in November and keep them in the freezer. Since you really never use raw cranberries for anything, freezing them has little effect on their usefulness or versatility, so it's ideal. You should try it. They'll be gone before you know it!

We opted to forego traditional pies this year, but replaced them with the most delicious fall harvest, sweet goodness in the whole world. You know you want it. This calls for gingersnaps, and I made my own molasses spice cookie for those, but you definitely don't need to do that. Maybe I'll post that recipe some time. Because both cranberries and pears are in season right now, they're both super cheap. GO! BUY SOME! MAKE THIS CRISP!

Cranberry Pear Crisp

adapted from Sweet Melissa Patisserie via Smitten Kitchen

Crumble

1 cup all-purpose flour

1/4 cup granulated sugar

3 tablespoons packed brown sugar

1 cup gingersnap crumbs (about 4 ounces)

1/8 teaspoon ground ginger

1/8 teaspoon table salt

Pinch of white pepper, [trust . . .]

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted and cooled

Filling

5 large ripe pears (I used a combination of red and green Anjou) peeled, halved, cored and sliced 1/4 inch thick

1 1/2 cups fresh cranberries (about 1/2 bag)

Juice and finely grated zest of 1 lemon

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract (use the kind you made at home with rum. Pears ♥ Rum . . .)

1/2 cup granulated sugar

2 tablespoons cornstarch

Preheat the oven to 350°F.

Stir together the flour, granulated sugar, brown sugar, gingersnap crumbs, ginger and salt. Stir in the melted butter until large crumbs form. Set aside.

In a 1 1/2 to 2 quart baking dish, mix the pears, cranberries, lemon juice, lemon zest and vanilla. Just dump them in there. If you want a thick crisp, go for a smaller, deeper pan. I used a large (10") square dish and the ratio of fruit to crumble was excellent. In a small bowl, whisk the sugar and cornstarch together then toss it with the fruit mixture in the pan. No extra spices, just sugar and thickener. This baby tastes like its fruit.

Sprinkle the gingersnap crumble over the fruit. Set the crumble on a foil-lined baking sheet if you're worried about bubble over (mine didn't because the dish was big) and bake it for about 45 minutes, until the crumble is a shade darker and you see juices bubbling through the crumbs.

Eat this thing ravenously and fresh from the oven. Or for breakfast. I think it would be great for breakfast. Or over ice cream. We used slightly sweetened fresh whipped cream and garnished with some of the leftover cookies.

WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR? GO NOW! BAKE!

The Best Peach Jam I've Ever Had

OK, disclaimers first: I used nectarines, not peaches, because the sale-price nectarines were riper than the sale-price peaches. So there.

Back to our show: The jam. This batch of sugary goo is out. of. control. The boys wanted to just eat and eat it once I gave them a little taster. I intentionally preserved it in smaller jars so we wouldn't eat it all in one fell swoop once opened. It has a few less-than-conventional ingredients, but I think they are completely worth it. Oh, and go easy on the almond extract—we're talking drops, not anything more. That stuff will take over if you let it.

My Perfect Peach/Nectarine Jam

makes 6-8 cups

3-4 pounds ripe peaches and/or nectarines

7 1/2 cups sugar

1/4 cup lemon juice

1/2 cup water

1 cinnamon stick

1 vanilla bean, split

1/2 tsp unsalted butter

scant 1/8 tsp almond extract

2- 3oz. packets liquid pectin

Peel, pit, and chop peaches. Give them a good mashing—I used my hands and just squished them about, but you could also use a potato masher or pulse them a bit in a food processor. I got some great textural variety using my hands; I think I'd do it again.

Put peaches in a large, heavy saucepan, and add sugar, lemon juice, water, cinnamon stick, and vanilla. Stir to combine, and put over medium heat; stir until sugar is dissolved. Add butter and almond (I warned you—be careful with that stuff—err on the side of caution, and adjust to taste) and stir to combine. Heat, stirring constantly, until jam reaches a steady boil. Add both packets of pectin, and return to a boil. Boil 1 minute, remove from heat, and bottle that stuff using good common sense.

You don't have to preserve it of course. You could just put it in jars in the refrigerator and eat it up with a spoon. Or you could put it in a sweet dough shell and have an instant summer tart. No matter what you do with it, you're going to love the complex, smooth, summery flavour, especially in the dead of winter when you pull that jar off the pantry shelf. I know I'm looking forward to it.

Peach Syrup

Today our peaches were finally ready for canning. We, of course, have been eating them constantly since Monday night, but they weren't peeling and pitting easily, so we gave them a couple days to ripen up. Oh, Hallelujah! did they ripen up. They're amazing, especially for so early in the season, and we were happy to put up a dozen quarts in jars and a few more in the freezer for smoothies.

When all the peaches were packed away, I found myself with several cups of accumulated peach juice and a huge pile of peach peel. It seemed too promising to throw away, so I searched and adjusted and finally settled on making some peach syrup to have on hand for when we need a little waffle love or a pancake party.

Most of this is principle and taste based—it'll kind of depend on what you want in the end, but here are the principles:

• You need peach juice, about 8 cups. Mine was a combination of what drained from the peaches and some I made by steeping the skins in water. I let it steep until it tasted wonderful, and called it good. So, if you have more juice on hand, add less water, just plan for 8 cups total.
• You should use 1/2 as much sugar as juice. So, if you have 8 cups juice, you should use 4 cups sugar. Jams and jellies tend to use 7/8-1 cup sugar per sup of juice, but syrup doesn't need to be as thick, so you can go easy. You'll want to measure your juice before adding your sugar to make sure you don't overdo it.
• Pectin is optional. I added some because I was trying to finish two different types of stuff and the same time and didn't want to wait any longer. You're looking for a temperature between 215˚ and 220˚ for your syrup if you don't use pectin. The best way to check it is with a frozen plate. It'll cool a dribble of jam quickly so you know how it will set. It's like the water test for candy.

So here's how I made mine today, and I consider it a great triumph for people who want to use every last bit of their fruit!

Peach syrup

makes 3-4 pints

3 cups peach juice (leftovers from canning)

3 cups peach peels and small chunks of fruit

5 cups water

4 cups sugar

2 Tbsp pectin+1/3 cup sugar [optional]

Boil peach juice, peels, and water gently until the taste is about where you want it, strong enough for the flavour of your syrup. Drain through a sieve, and press all the liquid out of the solids. Discard solids. Return juice to stove and bring to a boil. Add sugar, and boil gently, stirring often, until the frozen plate test gives you the desired thickness. If you're in a hurry, mix pectin and sugar, then add to syrup (careful, it will foam up!) and cook 2 minutes at a rolling boil. Preserve using good sense.