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!)