Pear Chutney

Follow steps 1 through 4 of Canning Instructions, using seven pint-size jars.

Place almonds in a 9-inch pan and bake in a 350° oven until golden, shaking pan occasionally, 8 to 10 minutes.

Peel, core, and chop pears; you should have 10 1/2 cups.

In an 8- to 10-quart pan, combine almonds, pears, bell pepper, sugar, vinegar, raisins, apricots, red onions, ginger, cinnamon, allspice, cloves, garlic salt, and cayenne. Measure volume (see "Sunset's Canning Tips" below). Bring to a boil over high heat, stirring occasionally. Reduce heat to medium-high and stir often until mixture is thick and reduced by 1/3, about 1 1/4 hours.

Follow steps 5 through 11 of Canning Instructions, leaving 1/2 inch of headspace in each jar and processing jars for 10 minutes (see Notes).

Sunset's Canning Tips:

Add butter to jams and jellies to prevent foam from forming during cooking. If you omit the butter, skim off the foam before ladling jam or jelly into jars. The recipe will yield about 1/4 cup less.

Measure all the sugar into a bowl before beginning the recipe. Many canning recipes call for a large volume of sugar to be added when a mixture is already boiling; measuring ahead simplifies this step and prevents mistakes.

Use a ruler to measure volume. Some recipes call for a mixture to be reduced by a certain amount. To ascertain this easily, insert a clean, wood ruler into the pan before cooking and measure how far up the mixture comes. Then cook as directed until it has reduced by the percentage specified. For example, if uncooked mixture measures 4 inches in pan and recipe says to reduce by half, cook it down to 2 inches.