Raspberry Pear Jam

Life has been a bit of whirlwind lately, so yeah, I'm a little behind on posting. We went and visited our families in Colorado in July. While we were there we got this impression that we needed to move back to Colorado.  We got back to Nevada the end of July and hubby started looking into jobs in the Denver Area.  We'll to make a long story short, he was offered a job in Denver and starts in October. Well, this whirlwind has kept us busy as we have to sell our house. We were cleaning and packing and getting the house ready to put on the market last week.  To top it off I had ordered a big 40lb box of pears so I could do some canning. They came a couple a few weeks ago and weren't ripe when I got them, but they were ripe a couple last weekend when we needed to do the majority of the cleaning. Perfect timing! No problem I can can 40lbs of pears and clean my entire house at the same time. Not to mention, I had cucumbers in my garden begging to be made into sweet pickle relish as well.  Anyway, I canned a lot of jam because we aren't a big fan of pears in syrup at our house. This is a new jam recipe I tried out this year and it. was. So. Good!

Raspberry Pear Jam

• 6 ripe medium pears, peeled, cored, and cut, About 3 cups
• 4 cups fresh raspberries
• 4 tablespoons lemon juice
• 1 (1 ¾ ounce) package powdered fruit pectin
• 6 cups sugar

Place pears in a large mixing bowl. Use a potato masher or fork to break the pears into small pieces. Measure the pears. You should have 3 cups of mashed pears. Place the raspberries in another bowl and mash into small pieces.

Measure the sugar and set it aside until you need it. Combine the mashed pears and raspberries, the lemon juice, and the powdered fruit pectin in a 6- to 8-quart pot. Bring to boiling over high heat, stirring constantly. Stir in the sugar. Bring to a full rolling boil. A full rolling boil is one that cannot be stirred down. Boil the mixture hard for 1 minute, stirring constantly, using a long-handled wooden spoon. Remove from  heat. Use a metal spoon to skim off the foam.

Ladle the jam into half pint jars, leaving 1/4-inch of head space. Process the jam for 5 minutes (*adjust for altitude). Remove jars from canner and cool on a wire rack

*1,000-3,000 ft add 5 minutes
3,000-6,000 ft add 10 minutes
6,000-8,000 ft add 15 minutes
8,000-10,00 ft add 20 minutes