Cherry ideas

[Millymollymandy]

I have started picking my cherries but I'll soon be swamped with them. Any ideas of easy recipes or ways to freeze them that doesn't involve hours spent cutting out the pip? Can I stew them like plums then take out the pips?

[shiney]

Hi MMM,

Have you got a cherry depipper? It's the sort of thing that you can destone olives with as well.

I inherited mine from one of my mums friends and it's so useful for depipping.

I have just got a few cherries ripening on my tree. I usually destone them, add a little sugar and cook them down and freeze. I eat them with ice cream and good ol' custard. (but not at the same time, you understand!) I've cooked them whole in the past, but found it less time consuming to take the stones out first.

I am going to use some in my experimental ice cream making sessions as well. I don't have an ice cream maker so I shall be beating the mixture up every few hours, when I freeze it.

[Millymollymandy]

I have most kitchen widgets and gadgets except one of those. I even have a melon baller which I have never used!

I'll have a look for one, otherwise I'll be playing "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor etc" !!!

[ina]

I described how to make ice cream using a bowl of frozen salt water on Shiney's ice cream topic (didn't log in, was using a different computer and forgot...) It's really very quick, just need to find two bowls that fit into one another with room in the bigger one for 2 l or so of frozen water. Dissolve as much salt in the water as it will take, and freeze it at least for 24 hours. Then stick the bowl with the ice cream mix in the bowl with the salt water and scrape the freezing stuff off the sides with a spatula. (Hope that makes sense! Don't eat the salt water !!!)

Ina

[ina]

Sorry, I was just re-reading the last posts and realised that maybe you meant you didn't have a cherry de-pipper, not an ice cream maker?

Anyway, it's really worth having one. Cherry de-pipper, I mean this time. You could bottle them with pips, that's probably the quickest way of processing them, but it takes longer to eat them afterwards. And not a good idea if you have family members with dodgy teeth . And for making jam you'd need them de-pipped, too (I love cherry jam). You could make juice with the pips in. I have a steam-juicer (if that's the right word for it), a very old model from my mother's, in which the fruit gets put into an insert with holes in it, a bit of water bubbles away in the bottom, and the juice comes out through a spout at the side. Alternatively, just cook the stuff in little water until very soft and drain through a kitchen towel. (Nice if you want to colour your towels pink... And if you use them for elderberries later, you get an even darker colour. )

Ina

[Millymollymandy]

I meant cherry de-pipper! I don't know if they sell them here in France, but then I've never looked.

I really just wanted to avoid spending a load of time depipping because I am too busy for that!

Isn't that the problem - growing your own veg is great but then you have to spend a lot of time preparing everything for eating as well as the time you spend growing it!

[Guest]

That is a problem, especially as it always all seems to happen at the same time, i.e. the time when "normal" people would also like to go on holiday... When I was a student I was once left to look after a garden which belonged to a group of other students, who ALL went away during the summer. Well, I had enough to eat that year, but also a lot of work. And no freezer at that time.

It can be good, clean family fun , too, preparing the food. I remember hot summer days, sitting on the patio with my mother (and less willingly my brother), de-stringing beans, de-pipping cherries, coring very wormy apples... The last job was my least favourite, but I liked the apple sauce we had at the end of it.

Ina

[ina]

Forgot to log in again!

Ina

[shiney]

Hi MMM,

I have made up a recipe today, which was surprisingly delicious. I cooked my first batch of cherries with a little brown sugar (well enough sugar to stop me making a face when I tested them!) I like things tart, but as you know these kind of cherries take the biscuit on the sour stakes.

I had a load of spare oranges in my fridge. 5 to be precise. So...I squeezed the oranges and then added the cooked cherries to the juice, whizzed them up with my handblender and made the most delicous smoothie.

It was good, I guess you could add the cherries to any fruit juice. A useful way of using them as well.

[Millymollymandy]

Sounds good but I'd definitely need a de-pipper for that - or it wouldn't be a very smooth smoothie!!

Are yours the sour type cherries then? Mine are sweet - although I fear I am picking them a bit underripe - but the birds are after them.

So far I have just been eating them as fruit. They seem to go off very quickly even in the fridge. The best is just picking a couple every time I go past the tree! I have this cunning plan you see ....... we need more gravel for the weedy drive, and cherry pips are similar..........

[shiney]

My cherries are the sour type, but are delicious with a bit of sugar added. You definately can't eat them off the tree and the birds don't even go for them.

They taste rather like those cherries you get with a cocktail, slightly almondy.

Definately invest in a pipper, perhaps you have an old Brocante nearby? There maybe one of those little treasure kicking around in there!

[IrishAbroad]

Hey Molly - Do you have one of those Trucks that comes by one a month or so - Outiror, Euro Vanadium etc. I got a depipper from there, nothing flash but it works fine - cost about 10E

But of course I can't be bothered using it all the time so I make jam with mine - stewed stones and all, then pass it though a sieve. And the same but with a little less sugar, hot on ice cream....mmmmmmm

[Millymollymandy]

Ah, so they do exist in France then! Yes we get those trucks - bought a blow up rubber boat for our lake from one last time! I'll have a look in the supermarket next time we go.

[Millymollymandy]

The travelling van catalogue came but no depipper, nor did I find one in the supermarket.

So I cut the stones out with a knife - three washing up bowlsful of them.

Never got to have many cherries really sweet and ripe because the birds got there first, but I have plenty stewed up in the freezer ready to do something with!

[ina]

I'm sure we can send you a de-pipper (sounds great, but somehow I don't think that's the correct term!) - I'll have a look if I can find one next time I'm at our local hardware shop (which, like every good hardware shop, sells just about everything you need to survive in the country!). I've got an ancient one from Germany myself, which is quite light and wouldn't cost much to send, even to France.

I'll let you know when I find one.

Ina