How to pit a cherry... and then make jam!

OK first off... the first annual steph chows jam exchange is underway!!! I've gotten some very exciting emails back from some of you already detailing what you sent... and MAN does it sound delicious!!! Maybe I should have just had you all send your jam to me... now that would have been an evil little plot if I do say so myself :) Thank you so much everyone for joining!!

If you signed up or think you signed up and didn't get an email from me this weekend with your exchange person's address... please email me right now and let me know!!! ( stephchows at gmail.com )


Now lets talk about some cherries. I bought a GIGANTIC container of cherries (like 10 lbs no joke) for the grand total of $6 at the public market last weekend. Hence why I had to make some cherry jam! I don't own a cherry pitter... my mom does, she said I could drive on down and borrow it... yeah 10 hours round trip... for a cherry pitter... no thanks :) Instead of going and buying one (the obvious solution), I went to the internet to find inventive ways to pit said cherries. One place had a great idea of using a straw... too bad the straws I had at home were so flimsy they just bent in half LOL (great idea though, it would work perfectly if you had a strong straw!) Next I tried a skewer... a few self inflicted jab marks later I moved on to my most obvious solution... the "squeeze them till the pit pops out" method.

squeeze.
thumb pins the pit to your other finger (or palm of your hand) as the rest of the fruit goes mushing in all directions (notice this method also gets rid of the step where it tells you to chop up the cherries) giddy up it's a two for one deal!


TADA!! Easy as pie! Yeah that puddle of cherry juice next to the measuring cup... that was from the straw method failure :D

I must say this was a seriously fast method! No buying a cherry pitter for me, think of all the time spent placing each cherry carefully into the pitter... my way... pure brutal force! Bring it on!


Cherry Jam
5 cups pitted cherries (somewhere around there)
2 cups sugar
1 package low sugar pectin (I used sure gel)

I used the recipe on the back of the low sugar pectin... except they say measure exactly and they also say to use 3 cups of sugar... Yeah.... I decided "screw that I only want to use 2 cups" and you know what... it jelled up no issues, and tastes great!!!

Take your 5 cups of pitted cherries and toss them in a sauce pan with 1/4 cup sugar and the package of pectin, stir it all up. Bring to a rolling boil (that means when you stir there are still bubbles bubblin away). Then add the rest of the sugar (1 3/4 cups) and stir that in. Return to a boil and stir for one minute. Remove from heat and process in a 10 minute water bath. More info on processing here.

SO FRAKIN GOOD!