Life is just a bowl of. . .

Before we headed out on vacation at the end of June, I went to our local orchard (you may remember it from last year) and picked some Rainier cherries on opening day. Speaking of last year, my very first entry was also about preserving Rainiers. While I was quite happy with our initial project, I'm sad to say that the dried cherries turned out to be pretty disappointing. After a month, or so, of storage they became really bitter. I wasn't able to turn up a lot of information on why that might be and what I could do differently, so wasn't particularly inclined to try it again this year (especially since our dryer has since been dismantled to be used in other projects). So, it was on to another method and I had one in mind - delicious amaretto cherries that we had eaten a few years ago at a friend's house. Happily, we have since acquired a book with a similar recipe, so I was prepared to give it a try.

my 7 pounds, or so, of cherries

I picked for about an hour and figured I had enough for a double batch, which was plenty for a day's work. They weren't super ripe, as it was still quite early in the season, but they were still tasty and I figured the syrup would certainly make them sweet enough. When I got home, I got to use my new cherry pitter (so sweetly gifted by dear friends last year, after my lamenting about doing all of that work by hand) and - let me tell you - it is a nice tool to have. I'm pretty sure your hand would still get tired if you were processing something like 20 pounds, but it was just right for the task at hand and made my life so much easier.

my sweet, sweet pitter

pitted and ready to go

Next, I heated them up in a light syrup.

For each jar, I added some amaretto, poured in the cherries, and then filled it with syrup. I processed them all in a water bath and: voila!

jarred

all of our cherries

Luckily for us, I didn't have quite enough to fill the last jar, so we got to eat some right away. I have to say, they are pretty darn delicious, just the right amount of sweet and amaretto. I will be interested to see what will happen as they sit (and what effect the water bath had on their flavor and consistency). All in all, not too strenuous and a recommended recipe!