Saturday, August 1, 2009

Mango Chutney and Drying Cherries

It looks like I've done something horrible to myself here, but actually I've just been pitting red cherries. My fingernails were stained for days.I don't particularly like Rachael Ray, but I did learn a great way to pit cherries from her show. If you have a percolator coffee pot, use the metal tube thingie from it. It gets the pit out perfectly every time. Do it over a tray, though, it is messy:I have about 4 cups of dried cherries now. I use them in a recipe for Bulgar wheat. Take a cup of water or chicken stock and a pat of butter and bring it all to a boil. Add 1/2 cup of dried bulgar wheat and turn it to a simmer. Let the wheat cook and absorb all the liquid. Put in a handful of dried fruit of your choice and serve. It is really fantastic.I also made the Mango Chutney recipe out of the Ball Jar book of home preserving. It turned out spicy but very good. I have 6 pints in the basement.

3 comments:

YD, sometimes with ♥June and ♥Angel Samantha said...

Haha, my hands were like that too a few weeks ago when I made my cherry jam. Because the cherries I had was quite soft, I just pressed them against the cutting board with my hands to pit them. It was a messy "bloddy" scene, with a knife next to the mess. I was tempted to take a picture of it.
Another cherry pitting idea I have is to use an empty beer bottle and a chopstick. Put the cherry on top of the bottle, push the chopstick through the middle and voila. The bottle acts as a pit collector.

Jody M said...

That's a great idea!

Me voici ∞ Here I am said...

When I saw the first picture I thought you had cut yourself horribly. Then when I saw you were working with Cherries, I said, ""Oh, been there."

Mango Chut, looks great!