FRUIT LEATHER LADY.

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Recently when visiting my family for another round of Birthday festivities...my father proudly produced a LARGE box of fresh 100% organic pears straight from their very own trees, ALL for US to have!

Unfortunately, the only problem with that:

1. I hardly EVER bake/cook -and ESPECIALLY lately. SO finding/making time to use up this wondrous bounty was a daunting task to say the LEAST!

1. The pears are a wonderfully ROBUST variety...they are not your everyday grocer's silky smooth sugary pears. They are granular and somewhat crunchy and great...but not what my kids are "used"to when eating what they know to be a "pear". (y'know how kids are, right? Touchy touchy in the food texture/appearance department.)

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SOOO, a week or so later when my mother dearest came over for a visit...and saw my untouched box of her wondrous pear-love...I honestly think she almost cried. It cut into her soul. (Fresh produce is touchy touchy to my mom, too. In a more-how could you dare waste this heaven sent fruit? )

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SOOO..I immediately bit my guilty lip, and poured out all of my sad sounding excuses for why I haven't made pear crisp, or pie, or bread, or smoothies, or any of the assortment of yumminess I might have, had I been more on top of my game! Poor unfortunate me! My mom then sadly asked if I would PLEASE at LEAST share them with people at church this Sunday, so they would not ALL go to waste.

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THEN. SATURDAY CAME AROUND.
I finally had some free time!! I had originally wanted to try my hand at homemade FRUIT leather...so I printed up a couple of recipes...having initially been inspired HERE.

And I started to PEEL. Pear peelings flew like never before in our pink kitchen! I was on fire to make fruit leather! The fruit leather bandit! The fruit leather LADY!!! (And YES, the cheese on this blog is complimentary. Your welcome.)Oh yeah. See, I told my sis Amelia, I simply can ONLY gather up the energy to make things I love. Icky casseroles? No way!! Fruity-Leathery-Sweet-Candy-Goodness?? Ummm, YES I CAN.

SO THIS is how it goes.

Get yourself about 8 ripe pears for two cookie sheets full of fruit leather.

So then peel the little babies!

Now- in between these two steps you slice-n-dice! Cut the fruit up into small slices, then stick into the blender with about a cup and a half of "other" fruit. ON my1st batch I added raspberries from the freezer (defrosted). On the 2nd time, I added blueberries. Yummy BOTH ways!!Puree the heck out of it! =) THEN, add to a large saucepan. Bring to a boil.

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NOw to the sauce I added about 1/2 cup of sugar, 2 tbspns lemon juice, and 1/2 -3/4 cup fruit juice.

I simmered heavily for about an hour, until it was getting thicker. (It honestly never got SUPER thick...but the oven does most the work anyway...) Then I lined 2 cookie sheets with parchment paper and poured it in trying to keep it even and smooth. I cooked it on the Convection mode at 145 degrees for 10-12 hours.

THIS is how it looks when it's done!! =)

Here you can really see the raspberry seeds, which were actually really yummy and a great texture. So far we have eaten about 4 cookie sheets FULL!!!

I rolled these up like Fruit by the Foot, and put them in my little butter dish.

They won't last long.

Guaranteed!