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["Donna &/or Kieran" <holycow@cookeville.com>]

I use these quinces to make hot pepper jam, or mix them with grated pears 
and spices for something with a lot more character than the locally made 
"pear honey".  For hot pepper jam:

1:  Grate quinces and measure volume
2:  Grate an equal volume of sweet peppers, red or green.  Prettiest with 
both.
3:  Measure out an equal volume of sugar to match the other two.
4:  Grate 1-3 jalapenos per pint  of other ingredients.  Personally I find 
it takes 3 jalapenos per pint to get the right heat.  If you don't deseed, 
it will be hotter.  I don't deseed them.  Wear rubber gloves if you can and 
use a good grater.  You could slice cayennes instead, I'd guess 3-4 per pint 
would do the job.  The cayennes are a lot easier to handle.  (We're now 
addicted to Kung Pao, a Thai pepper similar to cayennes.  I hardly bother to 
mess with jalapenos and get my hands all hot anymore.)  You can try tasting 
the raw or partly cooked ingredients for heat, but the cooked blend will be 
not be quite the same.
5:   Boil to the jelly stage, this won't take very long.  If you are lazy, 
add a bit of sugar at a time to make it jell faster.  It won't take very 
much, maybe half a cup to start it turning.
6:  Pour into sterilized jars, screw on sterilized lids.  The sugar content 
negates any need for further processing.  Any that fail to seal can be 
refrigerated.

Regarding proportions, you actually want this jelly to be a bit hotter than 
you think you do.  The effect will be diluted by bread and butter anyway. 
The trick is to get a hot bite, so the taste buds shriek "Warning warning, 
danger danger!" and then suddenly the heat is gone and you taste sugar and 
the more subtle flavors of pepper and quince.  Your brain says, "Wow, that 
was fun, let's do it again!"  Everybody ADORES it.  It's beautiful to look 
at in the jar, so good for Christmas presents, and it's great to take along 
with some good bread and butter for get togethers.

To go with pears, equal volumes or you could probably get away with 2-3 
parts of pears.  Again an equal amount of sugar to match the other volumes, 
though you might get away with less.  In fact, if you want to go for 
"butter" rather than the jell point, you'd use only half as much sugar as 
the other ingredients.  I would personally enjoy this more, as I don't like 
too much sugar in anything.  Add however much of cinnamon, nutmeg, or cloves 
as you'd use for apple butter.   Again, more spices than tastes good alone, 
as it will be spread on something.  (Careful with the cloves though!)  It 
might be best to actually spread some of the half cooked mix on some bread 
to get an idea before you pour it into the jars.  Bon appetit!    Donna