Cherry Pie, anyone?

Last Friday, I set to putting up some cherry pie filling using the nearly 20 lbs of cherries that I'd pitted a while ago.

 According to my recipe, I needed about 7 cups of juice. To get that, the cherries had to thaw for, like, ever in my colander set over my Paula Deen stock pot. 

Thawing the cherries and collecting the juice

 Once I'd gotten all my juice, it was time for the fun part! In my stainless steel stock pot, I combined 4 cups of the juice (I know, right?!?!? The rest is in the fridge where hubby - aka JP - will certainly drink it.), 2 1/2 cups sugar, 1 cup ClearJel (see this post about where to find it), and 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon. I then boiled it on medium high heat until thick before adding 1/3 cup lemon juice, boiling it for another minute after that. Then I added my cherries, gently stirring until heated through. I took it off the heat and began filling my pint jars, leaving about 1 inch headspace. Then into the water canner for 35 minutes. I got a total of 12 pints.

**Note: these were sweet cherries. For tart cherries, increase the juice to 8 cups (total), sugar to 3 1/2 cups, and reduce the lemon juice to 1/4 cup.

Sugar, ClearJel, and Cinnamon

Drained cherries

Cherry Juice

Lemon Juice

Cooking the filling before adding the cherries

Let me tell you, this was some good filling! I made a single crust pie yesterday (I cheated by using refrigerated dough) b/c I couldn't wait to try it out!

7 Pint-sized Successes

I spent a good couple of hours yesterday preparing the filling. I got such a late start that I thought I was gonna be late getting WT from school. (I was right on time, by the way.)

So, I know the idea of home preservation is like totally scary, but it really is easy - though time consuming. However, the feeling of accomplishment is so a total high that I almost forget about all the hard work it took to get there. Kinda like having a baby - the joy of meeting the little one supersedes the previous 9 months of sickness/pain/discomfort.

Remember all those apples that I peeled the other day? I ended up with just a little over 12 cups, sliced (I'm thinking that I'll dice them next time), which were blanched for about a minute then put into a bowl to keep warm while the filling cooked.

Sliced and ready for the hot bath

 

The filling: Clearjel, Lemon Juice, Unsweetened Apple Juice (not pictured: sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg)

 The filling calls for 2 1/2 cups unsweetened apple juice, 1 1/4 cups cold water, 1/4 cup lemon juice, 3/4 cup ClearJel (which you can find on Amazon), 1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon, and 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg. Combine all that, minus the lemon juice, in a large stainless steel saucepan. Cook that over medium high heat until thick and bubbly, stirring constantly. Add the lemon juice and cook for 1 more minute, stirring constantly.

**Note: this is processed using the water bath method. Start your canner before starting the filling. Also, when you start the canner, prepare your jars so they'll be ready when you are.**

Drain the apples that have been keeping warm and immediately fold them into the filling. Ladel the filling into the prepared jars, wipe the rim, and put on a lid. (If needed, clean the jar where the band screws on.) Now screw on a band, finger tight. Put in the canning rack, and submerge in the boiling water. Process 25 minutes. Remove, place jars on a toweled surface to cool, and listen for the "PING!" Leave them on the counter overnight and check for a good seal by removing the band and gently lifting the jar just off the counter by the lid.

Waiting for the hot bath

Today's project: sweet cherry pie filling.

Before there were tasty pies...

Today, I spent a good couple of hours peeling a nice huge stock pot full of apples that I had picked last week from Grandmom Sallie's apple trees. (And those trees are *still* loaded, let me tell ya!! O_o)

Not exactly the prettiest but will be delicious!

As you may know, there are two ways of peeling apples: by hand with a veggie peeler or using a peeling gadget thingy (that also makes awesome curly fries!)

 You can get these anywhere for around $20

Well, for whatever reason unknown to me, the stupid thing wouldn't work right for me, resulting in severely butchered apples. (Well, I only had one apple that I couldn't use b/c of this "machine.") Enter the veggie peeler...

  

By the time I got to the bottom of the pot, my hands were murmuring and complaining murderously. I guess they'd never heard the verse that says to do things without " murmuring and complaining." *sigh*

All that work amounted to about 12 cups of slices, sitting very happily in some aciduated water (aka water with lemon juice) until my ClearJel comes. (You know you have to order the stuff online, unless you're one of the fortunate ones who have a commercial foodstuffs dealer around?)

 Apples awaiting their transformation to pie filling