Ah, Sour cherries. Really, really love cherry pies. Which means if I want more than one or two pies a year, I need to procure and process them for the long winter. I happened to notice about two weeks ago that the wild sour cherries, which the birds were eating like mad, were almost ripe. This made me think I better call the local orchard and check as to when they might be picking. Good thing I did as they said to call back June 22, and then said tomorrow and probably tomorrow only. Wow! Early - by about two weeks. Guess what we did yesterday. : )
We picked 22 pounds in about 50 minutes. Not as plentiful as in years past, but very nice and very ripe. I had wanted 13-14 quarts. Took two bowls that were 6 and 8 quart size. We took 2 quart berry boxes to pick into so as not have an oops and spill the whole enchilada. It appeared that the bowls were not as big as they stated, since they were full at 5 and 7 quarts. We picked til the cherries were rolling off, and then filled the boxes and left. Less $33 ($1.50/pound) but with our treasure of red pie cherries.
After feeding the horses, I started processing. The most time consuming part is the pie filling, so I started (and ended - HA) with that. It also included an interval of ridding the yard of an unwelcome varmit.
The recipe I use is USDA fruit pie filling. For 7 quarts it says to use 6 quarts fruit. Well, that makes a little over five quarts. Used 7 quarts of cherries last year and got 6 quarts. I said, "Ah Ha, must mean pitted fruit and I bet I was measuring whole fruit." This year I measured 7 quarts pitted fruit with and extra pint in just to be sure I had enough. Got almost 7 quarts, but not enought to process Number 7. Soooooo, Next Year, if I go with 8 quarts pitted (it was really close), maybe I will hit my canner load. That 7.5 pitted came from the heaping 8 quart bowl and 1/2 a quart box. So does 8.5 - 9 quarts whole = 7.5 pitted?
By the time I'm finished, take my afternoon sweat bath feeding the horses, decide all we will have for dinner is a quick salad, I'm too whooped to do the jam.
Update: We made 7 jars of jam, two fresh cherry pies, and 2 quarts frozen from the remaining 7.5 quarts. Which seems to say we picked circa 16 quarts.
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