Pitting Cherries

Cherries are pitted much earlier in the year but since I'm posting a cherry jam next time, I decided to talk about pitting cherries.

This was my first cherry pitter.  Very slow and messy.  One at a time and juice splatters everywhere.  I borrowed a larger one that had a reservoir to catch the pits but it still only pitted them one at a time.  It was not as messy but my hand got sore from pushing down the plunger so many times.

 

I decided to splurge and get a multi-cherry pitter since I have four cherry trees and they produce many pounds of cherries. 

 

I freeze some of the cherries with pits just to eat as fruit during the winter.   I pit the ones I am going to use for jam, desserts, smoothies, and baking.

 

As you can see, it pits five cherries at once.  You fill the hopper with cherries and give them a nudge into the holes.

  

You pull the lever and voila five done in an instant.

 

As you can see the pitter comes down and pushes the pit through the cherry into a container.

 



 

You can see the sharp teeth that push out the pits.

 



 

The cherry stays on the pitter to fall off into another container.

 

 

 

Here are the cherries - ready to be bagged and frozen.  I usually make my cherry jams in the early fall when things have slowed down in the garden.  July is too busy and often much too hot to be making jam.

 

 

Here is the pile of pits.  This pitter is quick and not too messy.  It isn't 100% perfect so you do have to check for missed pits.  This happened with the other pitters as well.  Sometimes the pitter slides alongside the pit and leaves it in the cherry.  But this is minor to getting the pitting done quickly.  I do a quick check when bagging the cherries and again when I thaw them out to use to remove any missed pits. 

 

All in all, I'm happy with my cherry pitter.  It makes cherry pitting much simpler.

 

Frenching Green Beans

I like my green beans frenched when I freeze and blanch them.  It is more time-consuming but I think it is worth it.  I like whole cooked green beans when they are straight from the garden but think that they taste better frenched when they are from the freezer.

This shows the three methods of frenchers that I have used.

This was my first frencher.  You feed the beans through it one at a time. 

This was the second bean frencher I bought.  You turn the handle as you feed beans into the slot.  I used it for years frenching enough beans for a family of four.  Often we did a two person frenching - one feeding the beans and one turning the handle.

Last year, when I went to french my beans, I found the suction cups that hold the frencher to the table worn out.  I decided to try the food processor and VOILA! easy frenching.  You put half-a -dozen or so beans in the hopper and turn on the switch.  Then you feed in the beans as fast as you can.

Nice and easy and so quick!

I frenched these two huge bowls of beans in no time.  Now my food processor in my bean frenching buddy!  Then a quick blanching and yummy beans all winter.  ;)

Freezing Spinach

I had an over-abundance of spinach this year.  We ate it steamed, in salad, and in soup.  I decided to try to freeze some.  I found the following link giving three ways to prepare the spinach to freeze.  I decided on steaming it.
http://voices.yahoo.com/how-freeze-spinach-3-methods-5303177.html?cat=22

First wash spinach thoroughly.

Add about 1 to 2 inches of water in your blancher and bring to a boil.  I used the blancher instead of my steamer because it holds more at once.  I kept the water below the bottom of the top blancher part so all the spinach would steam.  If some of the leaves were in the boiling water they would cook at a different rate.  Spinach is quite touchy as you don't want it to turn to mush by over-cooking it.  You just want it limp.

Loosely fill top of blancher.  Don't pack to tightly or all the leaves won't steam at the same rate.  Steam for 1 to 2 minutes.  I found 1minute and 45 seconds worked for me.

Allow to drain and cool in colander.

I used my salad spinner to remove as much moisture as I could.  You have to spread the spinach around the bottom of the spinner or it will be uneven and hard to turn.

I them bagged the spinach to freeze for later use.  I want to try it resteamed when thawed and to use some in soup this winter.  I'll let you know how it turned out when I use some.