Life enrichment=canning (imported from Myspace)

Okay, so there are lots of things I can't do and many of them I really want to be able to do. These include fluently speaking spanish, ballroom dancing (well), singing, styling my hair properly, etc. But I can no longer say that I cannot can food! Woo hoo!
Our friend Pat is one of those women who loves anything homespun, like garden produce, canning, needlework, home remedies, etc. She would rather take a shot of honey, whisky and lemon than use some good old nyquil. (She keeps trying to convert me, but it is NOT working. YUCK.) Anyway, she makes this awesome stuff called pear relish. I'd never heard of it while growing up in Jacksonville, though, as it turns out, there are lots of things I had never heard about until I moved to the sticks, ahem, I mean Alabama.
Anyway, pear relish is simple - made of pears, sweetened with sugar, with bell peppers (various colors), hot peppers, onions and vinegar added in.
We got two five gallon buckets full of pears from Pat's house a week ago. She said to lay them out to ripen for a week, which we did. Then they all have to be peeled, cored and then blended. Lots of work. Andy peeled while I cored and added ingredients. It was a good assembly line. Well, it took us about 4.5 hours, but we finally did get the stuff made! Yay - go us!
In the middle of our project though we realized that our blender only has one working setting - puree. I mean, it has lots of setting, but they all do the same thing - puree. So, instead of coarse grinding the pears, we pureed the pears. And instead of coarse chopping the onions, bell peppers, etc., we pureed the onions, bell pepper, etc. If you want to know what nasty looks like, I would wager that it looks very similar to pureed onion. :)
Turns out that canning isn't so much hard, as it is time consuming. You fill the jars with the substance you prepare, then screw the lids on tight and boil in a large canning pot for twenty minutes. Then you sit the scalding hot jars out on the counter and wait for them to pop! That means that they have sealed.
Well, so far our pear relish has been a hit. We are very proud. When you look at the end result, which for us was 12 pints and five quarts and think "I made that!" you feel a swell of pride! :)