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!