Getting figgy with it.

Recently, a dear friend of mine (after eating about 75 figs all to himself mind you) shared with me the location of a neighborhood fig tree, heavily laden and cascading over the public sidewalk.   After knocking on the door to inform the residents of the house, we began to fill our basket with the  most perfectly delectable figs.  I had visions of  fig sauce on pork chops in mid-winter and immediately began pouring over the Complete Book of Home Preserving, where I was happy to find an easy fig preserve recipe and great information about canning in general.

My basket held about 30 figs and I added these to 8 cups of boiling water.  I turned the heat off, covered the pot and left the figs to sit for about 15 minutes.

In a different pot, I combined 2 Cups of sugar and one sliced lemon and boiled them over high heat with 4 cups of water to dissolve the sugar.

I removed the lemon slices and added 2 cups of figs at a time to the pot. I boiled them in the syrup until the skins became brown and transparent.  I set these ones aside and added more green figs until they were all brown and the syrup was thick and dark.  I combined the figs and syrup and left it to cool overnight.

The next morning I decided to chop up the figs before reheating them.

 I brought the figs and syrup back to a boil and prepared my jars and lids.  I filled my hot jars, making sure to leave 1/4" headspace and processed the jars in a boiling water canner for 10 minutes.

And here's the new addition to my winter stash.  I made four half pint jars of Fig Preserves.  That should last me until my dear friend tips me off to the location of another heavily laden and ambiguously owned fig tree.