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Cherries

cabrales

By cabrales
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MarkinHouston

MarkinHouston

Posted
Posted

My recommendations:

1. Find yourself a cherry/olive pitter. I am not a kitchen gadget person, but mine has saved me hours of work.

2. I second the idea of booze. I recently put up a few quarts of cherries sotto spirito -- just empty a bottle of grappa or brandy over cherries pitted, macerated with some sugar, and packed into sterlized jars. Allow to mature for a few months, filter off the liquid as a liqueur.

3. Simmer cherries in red wine (Barolo!) with spices and sugar for a dessert sauce.

4. Epicurious has a good-looking recipe for sweet cherry and lemon conserve. Jams and conserves are really not difficult -- the original Joy of Cooking has everything you need to know about canning.

5. Crisps, crumbles, and pies.

and SAVE the PITS!! Cherry pits make a tasty grappa.

Do you have a recipe to share for the grappa? I am pitting as we speak! :laugh:

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polly

polly

Posted
Posted
Regarding the Jam - I was told by someone that you dont need pectin, you just use equal weight sugar and cherries and some lemon juice..

-Justin

I'm pretty sure that cherries are very low in natural pectin, the lemon would help but you'd need to make sure you had enough of the pips and pith to gel it.

How sad; a house full of condiments and no food.

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Jean Blanchard

Jean Blanchard

Posted
Posted

I just package (sugar added) individual portions for cherry pies or cherry crumbles. Also, make liquor is an excellent idea! Sometimes, I set aside portions in the freezer that I mix with vanilla ice cream, good chocolate (chopped) and refreeze. Then just scoop out, pour cherry liquore over and serve in a fancy glass. Yummy!

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ellencho

ellencho

Posted
Posted

Funny you should bring up cherry jam. I just made some over the weekend. I used Martha Stewart's recipe which calls for cherries, lemon juice and sugar - no extra pectin. Very easy to make and delicious.

Martha Stewart Cherry preserves recipe.

Here's the resulting jam on a biscuit.

IMG_1824.jpg

Believe me, I tied my shoes once, and it was an overrated experience - King Jaffe Joffer, ruler of Zamunda

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ellencho

ellencho

Posted
Posted (edited)

Oh no, I hope I haven't responded too late. I'm really not sure. I bought the cherries in 2 lb bags and it looked like it was enough cherries to fit into my 2 qt measuring bowl. So maybe 1 qt of cherries = 1 lb? I think that's about four cups.

Edited by ellencho (log)

Believe me, I tied my shoes once, and it was an overrated experience - King Jaffe Joffer, ruler of Zamunda

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  • 4 weeks later...
thecuriousone

thecuriousone

Posted
Posted
Some good ideas...

Does anyone  have a tried and tested recipe for making jams that they could share?

Cheers.

Hi there- I just finished processing my first batch of cherry jam. Go to the Harvest forum of www.Gardenweb.com. they have several recipes for jam and other good things.

I was reading further down this thread, there is a recipe for, "Black forest jam" on the above site. It uses cherries and chololate. It sounds wonderful.

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FabulousFoodBabe

FabulousFoodBabe

Posted
Posted
ps - One question...I dont have a scale at home, I was wondering approx how many cups is in 1lb of cherries...any ideas?  :blink:

2 3/4 cups = one pound, after cleaning and pitting.

Be sure to add a bit of acid to your cherries; it keeps them from 'graying,' or otherwise discoloring.

Such riches -- and such a gorgeous pie.

"Oh, tuna. Tuna, tuna, tuna." -Andy Bernard, The Office
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ravelda

ravelda

Posted
Posted

How about a nice cherry and almond tart (like a bakewell tart) with goats milk ice cream or for something savoury, caramelised duck breast with cherry sauce? Spiced cherry compte also works well with fresh seared or Ballotine of Foie Gras.

If a man makes a statement and a woman is not around to witness it, is he still wrong?

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  • 1 year later...
Dave Hatfield

Dave Hatfield

Posted
Posted
I am utterly drowning in sweet cherries.  The mention of grappa upthread is intriguing - does anyone have a recipe?  I'm looking for any interesting uses besides jam and syrup.

Abra

Two suggestions for you. Neither particularly involves cooking them, but both have advantages.

1) Take a market stall. Uzes has a terrific market & I'm sure you would sell all of your cherries. You wouldn't make much money, but the point is that its a lot of fun & you meet all kinds of interesting people.

We take a stand at a vide grenier every so often just for the fun of it. Its good for our everyday French as well.

2) Give your cherries away to friends, neighbors & acquaintances. Be a bit choosy and give them to those who have other types of fruit trees and/or those who have nice potagers and are cherry treeless.

This is as you will surmised not entirely altruistic. Given French generosity your gift of cherries will be repaid many times over by fruit & vegetables as the season progresses.

If you really want to cook your cherries you could make cherry pies & jams to sell on your market stall.

Either way you'll have some fun.

AKA Yank,
http://www.frenchfoodfocus.com/

http://forums.egullet.org/topic/104472-egfoodblog-dave-hatfield/

http://forums.egullet.org/topic/143664-eg-foodblog-dave-hatfield-la-france-profonde/

http://forums.egullet.org/topic/145926-eg-foodblog-dave-hatfield-a-food-adventure/

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  • 10 years later...
Okanagancook

Okanagancook

Posted
Posted

Cherries!  Love them.  Our Okanagan cherries are starting with some Rainers available.  We had rain last night so the helicopters were out in force this morning shaking the water off the berries so they don’t crack open.  Growers hate to have to do that, $$, but they have no choice.  Supposed to rain again later in the week 😟

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heidih

heidih

Posted
Posted
6 minutes ago, Okanagancook said:

Cherries!  Love them.  Our Okanagan cherries are starting with some Rainers available.  We had rain last night so the helicopters were out in force this morning shaking the water off the berries so they don’t crack open.  Growers hate to have to do that, $$, but they have no choice.  Supposed to rain again later in the week 😟

 

Fascinating. I had no idea

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Okanagancook

Okanagancook

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Yes it is.  When we first moved here 14yrs ago the helicopter came to our neighbour’s cherry block and we looked out in disbelief.  What the heck is going on.  That afternoon at the pub we were enlightened by the local farmers.

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kayb

kayb

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, Okanagancook said:

Cherries!  Love them.  Our Okanagan cherries are starting with some Rainers available.  We had rain last night so the helicopters were out in force this morning shaking the water off the berries so they don’t crack open.  Growers hate to have to do that, $$, but they have no choice.  Supposed to rain again later in the week 😟

 

I had not a clue. Love Ranier cherries. Haven't seen any in markets here.

Don't ask. Eat it.

www.kayatthekeyboard.wordpress.com

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lindag

lindag

Posted
Posted

Picked up a bag of 'FreshFruits Northwest Cherries' at my local store today...Don't know if they're Rainier but they 

taste like them;  they're very good.

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Okanagancook

Okanagancook

Posted
Posted

Rainier cherries aren’t red, they are multi-coloured...orange, yellow, red. Here https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainier_cherry

 

i tried to find a picture of the helicopters we may have taken but can’t find one.  They get really low over the trees (25 to 100 ft)which shake like the dickens.  This plus the fact that cherries have a lot of regular sprays applied, make them expensive...oh, and labour intensive to pick.

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blbst36

blbst36

Posted
Posted

Cherries are coming in here, too.  I got a bag for 2.99/lb - VERY cheap for NC.  I was so excited!  I want to go back and get another bag before they are off sale tomorrow.  I could eat them all day.

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David Ross

David Ross

Posted
Posted

I'm just a couple hours drive from the cherry orchards around Wenatchee, WA. We've started to see the annual cherries show up in the markets. But what was unusual yesterday was the Rainier cherries were only $1.99 a pound. As Okanagancook mentioned, they are the yellow, red and orange multicolored cherries. Even locally they are more expensive than Bing cherries, usually about $4 a pound. But I found them at $1.99 a pound which is a fantastic bargain even around here. I usually just buy them as eating cherries.

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David Ross

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blue_dolphin

blue_dolphin

Posted
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I went to a U-pick cherry orchard the week before last week, on their opening day.  Not cheap @ 6.00/lb but the quality was stellar.  The weather has been relatively cool.  When it gets super hot, they can go from ripe to overripe in a flash.  They've had an odd year and had to close for a few days in between the Brooks and Rainiers and again for several more days before the Bings ripened.  Usually they go fairly seamlessly, with some overlap between the varieties.  I got an email from them saying they expect today to be the last day of picking.  I'd hoped to go back for some Bings but I'm heading out of town tonight so that's it for my cherry picking this year.

I reported on my bounty in this post.

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BeeZee

BeeZee

Posted
Posted

I bought some cherries end of last week at $2.99/lb and they were small-ish and not that tasty. Rainier cherries at $1.99/lb have never been seen here in NJ, I'd be all over that! I'll buy cherries at different markets and when I get a good batch, go back and buy more. There seems to be a 2-week stretch that they are at the best flavor (for what we get in the store). And I will admit to being a cherry picker, I do select them individually to avoid under-ripe or mushy ones.

"Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast" - Oscar Wilde

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Paul Bacino

Paul Bacino

Posted
Posted

Just picked sour cherries last week!!  Froze them for later usage.

 

42878365171_4c0769ff61_c.jpg

  I did these by hand.   . PIA  need a small pitter ? preferably  something that I don't have to put one at a time in

42878345741_a2380796d1_b.jpg

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Its good to have Morels

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