Sweet Cherry Vanilla Jam

This year I added 20 lbs of sweet cherries to my fruit order and was thrilled at how fabulous they were.   Sweet cherries travel much better than sour cherries [which often arrive brown and running with juice, though delicious.]  Sweet cherries store well, stay firm and the extra few days gave us time to finish the peaches, which arrived first, and deal with the sour cherries and berries.   It was a very busy couple of weeks.   I washed the sweet cherries and put them in ziplocks stacked flat in the fridge.   It was easy to grab a bag in the morning, set it out and I confess we ate many many of those cherries fresh before I had a chance to make anything with them.

But I did make a couple of things with them and the first on the list was a batch or two [or three] of Sweet Cherry Vanilla Jam.  

It. Was. Heaven.   Like my favorite clafouti without the custard.    Soooo good.   Make some of this.  [Put it on chocolate cake.   Or just eat it with a spoon right out of the jar.]

Sweet Cherry Vanilla Jam
www.rurification.com

4 cups pitted sweet cherries, cut in half
1 cup water
1 vanilla bean, cut in half and then sliced open lengthwise
1/2 cup low sugar pectin [Dutch Gel All Natural Lite is my favorite]
1 cup sugar

Put the cherries, water, vanilla and pectin in a large pot.   Bring to a boil, stirring constantly.  When the jam reaches a hard boil [that bubbles like crazy even when you're stirring constantly], time it for 1 minute.    Add the sugar, stir constantly and return it to a hard boil.   Time it for one minute.   Turn off the heat, ladle into jars.   We process the jam in 1/2 pint jars for 15 minutes.   Yield:  2.5 - 3 pints.

For more recipes as easy as these, check out my ebook on the sidebar.  A Simple Jar of Jam: 180+ recipes & variations for jam using low sugar pectin.  Every purchase goes a long way toward supporting the blog.   Thank you!

Cherry Tomatoes

Tomatoes.   Goddess of the midwestern garden.   We love them raw, hot, straight off the vine.   We love them sliced on sandwiches and in salads.  We love them juiced and pureed in soups and sauces.

We love tomatoes. 

Except for Lily, who really doesn't care for them at all thank you very much. 

Weird, huh.


I grew two types of cherry tomatoes this year.   I had been planning on just one variety, but one from last year volunteered All Over The Place and I just left a few to see what they'd do.    Now I know.

The darker cherry tomatoes are Black Cherry.   I got the seed from Baker Creek.   These are fantastic little tomatoes!  I love them.   They're sweet and delicious.  Instead of turning red, they turn sort of brownish-pinkish and they stayed sort of greenish on top this year.    Weird.   But don't let that stop you from trying these.   They are prolific and excellent tomatoes. I will definitely do these again!

The other cherry tomatoes where volunteers from last year.   Principe Borgese.  They're a grape tomato [which, honestly, are just like cherry tomatoes in my opinion.  Seriously.  I can't tell the difference.]  They lasted last year until frost and produced and produced and produced.   These are great little tomatoes.   More acidic than the Black Cherry ones above, but easy and prolific.   I like these a lot.


See yesterday's post for a description of the big tomatoes that I grew this year.