[cheshirecheese]

Just made Delia's spice pickled pears, which look great in my VERY EXPENSIVE Le Parfait jars from Lakeland!!  I'll be giving them as Christmas presents, but will try to establish a 'returns' policy on the jars ... !  I halved the pears so they fitted better into the smaller 0.5 litre jars (her recipe is for one x 1 litre jar).  Also, she suggests small conference pears, but I used packs of kids' lunchbox pears from Sainsbury's (think they're probably baby comice pears) which worked just as well - obviously the idea is that the smaller the pear, the better they'll fit in the jars and the nicer they'll look.  You just need to keep testing towards the end of cooking time to make sure they're still slightly firm, as the texture softens as they mature.

[Haychee]

sounds fab!  Wish I could be bothered .......