Friday, July 17, 2009

Cherries!

















Round 1: It all started a couple of weeks ago when one of the stands at the biweekly Farmer's Market in Volksdorf (above) had organic sweet cherries for crazy cheap, so I bought up two kilos to freeze. I asked Stefan's mother, Thea, if she had a cherry pitter I could borrow, and she said that she had a homemade one, and that all the mechanical ones were basically useless. Well, I was skeptical, but I figure she's the expert, so I took it on. I didn't really have much choice, truth be told, since the cherries had to be processed before they started to go bad, which would have been a huge shame.

It went much more smoothly than I expected, and I pitted all two kilos (4.4 lbs to the Americans) in about a half an hour. I put them straight onto aluminum foil covered trays from our freezer, and filled two layers this way. Here I am at work.
























Here you see what a couple of kilos of cherries does to your fingers! And the cherry pitter I borrowed from Thea. Yes, that is a hairpin stuck in a cork. It actually worked quite well, I think. But, this being cherry season, I had to give it back and figure something out for myself for the next round...



















So two kilos of cherries yielded about 1.75 kilos pitted. Below you see the bags ready to be put back in the freezer and my little helper.


















Just after I finished processing these cherries, Kurt asked Stefan to go to the house of a family friend to pick some cherries from their tree, so Stefan came home with another one and half kilos of sweet cherries. These were somewhat more bland than the variety we got at the farmer's market, but I wasn't about to throw them out! However, I had returned the cherry pitter to Thea, and didn't have a hairpin around. If you can believe it, I used a clam shucker to pit the cherries. Don't ask why I have a clam schucking knife around...I just do, and it worked quite well I must say. So another two and half bags of cherries were added to the freezer. If this keeps up, I'm going to have to get another freezer just for cherries!



Round 2:
Our next-door neighbor has two sour cherry trees along our western property line, both of which conveniently overhang our lawn. The neighbor is a retired gentleman who I think has no interest in his bounty, and he said we were welcome to whatever we could reach. We could reach plenty.

















With Eris's help, we picked five kilos (11 lbs), or all that would fit in the pot.


















I have been told that these cherries are a variety called Shatten Morellen, which are known for their flavor. They are really too sour for me to eat out of hand, so I made jam. Well, some of it is more preserves than jam as it didn't all set very well, but it tastes good. We have had a very wet year so far, so the fruit was very watery. This variety is so flavorful that it didn't taste watery, but the juices were somewhat diluted. I could feel it on my fingers, which puckered up from the water (which hadn't happened before) and I could see it when I boiled the jam. It took a looong time for the jam to get to the gel point.

I only bought six "real" jam jars that I could seal, and I put some up in reused jars with a disk of vodka-soaked paper in the lid so I could give them away. I think I had a total of ten 300 mL jars (a little over 8 oz). This is really my favorite flavor of jam. I think I'll need to make more to give away!


















Not that there is a shortage of cherries or anything. I took the picture below two days ago, well over a week after we harvested the first five kilos. I am thinking of making a little more jam, and maybe canning some in their own juice. Anyone have any pointers on canning cherries?

6 comments:

  1. Alles sieht super aus. I found you by way of Holly at Decor8. I spent 9 years in HH before moving to Italy and opening a B&B. When I was looking at your post, I was thinking ..mmm, mid July ... cherries! Here our cherries are ready the last week in May to the first week in June. That is a big climate difference.

    There are a few expat bloggers living in No. Germany, if you go to my blogroll, there is Campbell Soup Story and Cooking with Rosie -- one is in Norderstedt and the other just relocated to Buxteude (and is having a baby in August).

    Alles Gute

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  2. @Diana-sorry I am so late to respond. I wish Blogger would send me a note when there was a comment. Maybe I need to start moderating them just so I see them. :-)
    Anyway, many thanks for the comments. I will check out your blogroll. I am feeling a bit isolated the last month or so, so your pointers are quite timely! Many thanks.

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  3. AWESOME KELLY!!! love the hairpin-cork idea from Thea, gonna try it.

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  4. Wow. My dad would be so jealous for all your cherries. He loooves sour cherry preserves. Your little munchkin is looking cuter than ever!

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  5. I like jam.

    Jam is good.

    Yum, jam.

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  6. Such beautiful photos! Now I'm longing for summer all over again.

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