Cherishing Cherries

Good morning, my friends. When life gives you cherries, it's the pits. 😆 I'll tell you what was pitty about it in a minute, and then you can pity me. Oh my gosh...I'm on quite a roll this morning. But it's always best to start at the beginning, so here we go with the slow-stitching.

My hoop was mostly full, and so I moved to the right a little bit. There isn't much left there on the right side. I expect to reach the halfway point this morning.

From there, I went straight to work with the cherries. I had seven pounds to work with. I used a recipe from the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving to make some sweet cherry jam. My yield was 8 half-pints.

Another 3 lbs. went into three pints of cherries in simple syrup. I use those when I make skillet cherry cobbler. I had three jars left from 2021, and so three more jars will be enough to keep us in cherry cobbler until next year. The cherries in syrup couldn't be simpler. It takes four cups of pitted cherries, and then 2-1/4 cups each of water and sugar to make a simple syrup. Bring the water and sugar to a boil, add the pitted cherries, and then return to a boil just briefly. The cherries are spooned into the jars using a slotted spoon, and then the syrup is ladled in to fill the jars, leaving an inch of head space. There will always be cherry syrup left over, and I add that to another jar and refrigerate it. And if you want to go ahead with the long-term preserving part, they're processed for 15 minutes in a boiling water bath. And if you don't want to bother with that, they'll keep in the refrigerator for a long time.

So that was all well and good. I was finished before lunch time, but pitting all those cherries just about killed my right wrist. I had some lunch and took a short nap. When I awakened from my nap, my arm was absolutely killing me from wrist to elbow. Obviously, there would be no quilting. So, that was kind of a bummer. (This is the part where you can pity me.) Thankfully, it was feeling better by the time we went to bed after taking some ibuprofen, applying some topical anti-inflammatory, and immobilizing it for the afternoon. It feels fine today, and so I'll be able to get back to my quilting.

Since I couldn't quilt, I headed out to check on things in the garden. Now, I must be tomato blind or something. After showing you the "first tomato" on the slicer, I noticed yesterday it has at least a half dozen tomatoes. There are three in the picture below, and more in other areas of the plant. Some of them are larger than the "first" one I showed you, so it obviously wasn't the first. 

 

And if you look at that tomato at the bottom, I'm thinking they've just been hiding...trying to escape their future as "slicers."

In other vegetable news, the first flowers have formed on the itty bitty cucumbers. When I saw this, I remembered that, like zucchini, they form their vegetable first. The flower comes later. The flower must be pollinated for the baby to grow into a full-sized edible vegetable. If not, they shrivel and die. So I'm hopeful everyone will do their jobs. 

Speaking of zucchini, there is a lot coming. I'm torn between leaving it on the plant to allow it to grow large for relish. On the other hand, I could harvest the smallest among them to make a favorite Canal House Marinated Zucchini Salad. Here's some I made from a previous year's zucchini.

It doesn't look like much, but it's very tasty and easy to make. I've linked to the recipe back there for those of you trying to keep your zucchini crop from taking over the world.

The sunflowers are developing flowers. I absolutely cannot wait for them to bloom. Sunflowers are among the most amazing things in any garden, if you want my opinion. And even if you don't want my opinion, you'd be mistaken to think otherwise.

Even the ladybugs are excited for the flowers to come.

In the purple corner, the purple hydrangea is starting to show some color. This is one of the most beautiful hydrangeas I've ever seen. It was a birthday gift from Mae some years back. We wondered if it would maintain its purple color, and it has. It's planted in a corner that gets only morning sun, and then shade in the afternoon, and it is a very happy plant.

Since there was no quilting to be done, Smitty spent his afternoon sunbathing. It was good for him to have a day off too.

Okay, so here's what we concocted with that leftover cherry syrup. I knew it would be good on vanilla ice cream, but then my imagination went a little wild. We had a couple of scoops of vanilla ice cream with cherry syrup ladled over. Then, we drizzled it with hot fudge ice cream topping, and topped it with a dollop of whipped cream to make a Black Forest Ice Cream Sundae. Mmm, mmm, mmm.

And that was a sweet way to end the day. 

There are still some cherries left. Mike is going to help me pit them today, and I'm going to use them to make a cherry sherbet. I'm pretty sure I've made the sherbet before, but I can't remember ever doing it. (Pauses to search old blog posts.) Yes, actually, I did make it way back in 2011. It's a recipe from the Pioneer Woman. Here's the picture I took after I churned it.

Apparently, I haven't made it again. Well. It's high time, I'd say. Wouldn't you? So that will be a multi-day process since it needs time for chilling before churning. I'll start my day with slow-stitching and then get busy on the sherbet. It's probably a good idea to get out and hoe some weeds again today, but then I'll get back to my quilting. It's going to be a busy day. What are you doing to keep busy today? Whatever it is, I hope it keeps you out of trouble.