Vanilla and Pears

I should never go to Whole Foods.

In addition to yesterday's Muscat grapes, I have been thinking about doing something with the Bartlett pears every time I go in there and see the great big display of them. So I bought a bunch yesterday. Then I went on line and found a recipe for vanilla pear jelly. However, the jelly requires Anjou pears. OK. So I went out this morning to the store (not the Whole Foods) and bought 8 Anjou pears and proceeded to caramelize them. I am not sure that was the intended method, maybe I cooked them too long? I was gardening at the same time. Anyway - I got about 1/4 cup of juice. So I tried a trick from one of my cookbooks and steeped the pears with boiling water. I had to do that twice to get the 3.5 cups of juice needed. Also, I added an extra teaspoon or 2 of vanilla. The vanilla is from Penzey's. It smells glorious! The rest of the recipe went fairly smoothly. I ended up with 5 half-pint jars and some in a tupperware container. The family is busy dipping 'Nilla wafers in it.