The Great Cherry Massacre, 2009

I've become very interested in canning and preserving foods this year. Friday I made salsa with produce from my garden, and when I went to the grocery store yesterday I found some Bing cherries on sale for 99 cents a pound - that's really incredibly very very very cheap.

So, I bought some, and this morning I decided I was going to make some cherry jam with them.

It starts with destalking then washing the cherries. Then, you have to pit them:


I felt like a Civil War surgeon, and my kitchen looked just like a battlefield OR. There was dark red cherry juice everywhere; it was dripping off my elbows and all over my shirt.

This is the aftermath of the massacre:


I had to bleach the chopping board and the counter to get the stains out. However, this is what I was left to cook with:



Mmmm....cherries!

I added some lemon juice and a little secret ingredient, then added the sugar and started it on a boil. It has to cook for quite a long time; about a 90 minute simmer should suffice. You can tell it's ready when you drop some of it onto a cold plate and it forms a skin and wrinkles when you push it with your finger.

When it's ready, you ladle it into hot jars and put the lids on it. You can give it 10 minutes in the canner, or you can just put it up in a cool dark place....I'm opting NOT to give mine the waterbath canning treatment this time.

And voila! Cherry jam, the NinjaMedic way!