Tuesday, July 21, 2009

What to do with the cherries...and the Kool-Aid

But not together! :)

I found a great cherry jam "non-recipe" I am excited to try. I have approximately 8lb of cherries that have not been eaten that i am headed up to de-pit shortly. woo-hoo. Note the excitement.

A tip I was given: Insert a chopstick in one end of cherry and pop out the pit. I am looking forward to trying this because the last time I pitted cherries, I spent about 2 hours cutting them in half and digging the pits out with a grapefruit spoon. My fingers were dyed red for a week. I'll let you know how the chopstick thing works out.

HERE are the directions for the jam. I'll be picking up some jars tomorrow since I gave all mine away a year-ish ago.

Now, as for the Kool-Aid, of which I have a lot, and of which we don't drink: a friend of mine gave me a great tip! Buy the lemonade flavor. Then, do the following:
1. Empty the dishwasher and clean the trap
2. pour packet of lemonade kool-aid in the cup where the detergent goes and close door
3. Run hot cycle
4. Have brand spanking sparkling dishwasher.
5. Repeat monthly
Apparently the citric acid in the lemonade cleans out the dishwasher of lime deposits and any iron stains- and does a way better job than any of those rinse-aids out there, and is certainly healthier than putting bleach in your dishwasher! (What a terrible idea, by the way). It also smells great!
(Thanks Amanda!)

7 comments:

  1. Brandy, I've been told that the tip of a cake icing kit works really well for pitting cherries. Not sure if you're finished pitting yet but this might be a better choice than the chopsticks.

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  2. Haven't. Even. Started.

    LOL.

    Trying to get all my q's together for tomorrow. Great tip! (pun intended ;) ) Now... do I have one of those laying around? hmmm.

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  3. I de-pit cherries with tweezers. Poke, grab, pinch, pull. I don't remember who told me that. I only ever de-pitted once, probably a dozen years ago. But it worked good.

    I was thinking I'd like to try making cherry pie filling out of mine. I'm not sure whether to make it and freeze it, or freeze them as they are and make the filling as I want it.

    Great tip on the dishwasher. I'll have to remember it for when I get a new one. I think mine's on it's last leg.

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  4. huh. tweezers. Another good idea! I did some with the chopstick last night (couldn't find a cake thingamawhatsits) and it worked well- only there was lots of juice, and I sort of felt like i was disemboweling something. Looked like it too with the bright red juice all over my hands. heh. I got my jars today, so I am going to attempt to do more tonight before I have to freeze it all and start from scratch.

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  5. Whoever told me to use tweezers obviously wasn't de-pitting these kind of cherries. Rainier?

    I cut them open in half, and then was able to use the tweezers to pull the pit out. I felt like a dentist pulling a tooth out. Blood and everything. Ooooohhh :shiver:shiver: gross!

    I made a cherry cobbler. Haven't tasted it yet, hope it's good. I'm not sure if I put in enough cherries though.

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  6. mmmm cherry cobbler. Almost as good as peach cobbler. If only I could find some good sweet peaches. Even when Iw as living in GA I never could find any really good ones. Man, what I wouldn't give for a fresh off the tree, ripe peach.

    HA! I know the feeling about the cherries. I pitted about 7 pounds of cherries and my hands were stained almost black until this afternoon, and that was even after spending several hours in a pool. I told Hub I felt like I shuold have been an extra in Sweeney Todd.

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  7. Cobbler turned out good (surprisingly, lol)

    I used to like peaches. Until I peeled/cut up...I don't know, a bushel?...of peaches for my Grannie one summer.
    Every since then I feel kindof icky about them.

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