They look great Annie and I love your new toy. I love cherries! I have the same problem as you as both my freezers are packed.

Luscious!! I love cherries. I have a couple of bags of them in my fridge that I picked up for 1.97/lb on sale. But man-o, no where near 30 lbs! Those cherries are gonna make some good eatin Annie!

Looks like a good pitter. I've got sweet cherries too, I like them fresh but wait for the sours for putting into the freezer. Love cherry season.

Nancy

They look wonderful Annie!

And I wish I could get as many cherries just so I could buy that great little gadget. What an ingenious toy!

SharonCb

That's the same cherry pitter that I have, Annie -- and I LOVE it! You do have to be careful because it will let one or two slip by on occasion -- but, I've always told anyone eating my cherry pie that they do so at their own risk. LOL

I'm hoping to get out and pick tomorrow!

I am a bit jealous as I sit here pitting gallons of sour cherries by hand:)

Stacie

Between Elery, Jesyy and Johnliu, there are a lot of new kitchen toys on this forum. The cherries look magnificent.

Tamara, I think it would let the smaller sour cherries slip through more than the larger sweet ones, but I haven't tried the sours.....yet. I'll definitely watch, though.

Definitely get out there and pick, I've got a bowl full in the fridge and I eat a handful every time I walk into the kitchen. I only like them fresh and local to eat out of hand, after they are frozen, they aren't as nice unless I'm baking with them.

Stacie, I pitted by hand until this year, I can't tell you what a difference there is with this gadget!

Annie

Cherries are my favorite! I've been going to the local farmer's market very early on Saturdays to get the best pickings, and eating them every day. Our season started weeks ago but I think it ends earlier too - then I have to buy imported ones from Costco.

Good idea to freeze them for baking later. I don't really bake but I like to make things with fruit - persimmon cookies, clafoutis... I also make yogurt smoothies with fresh fruit almost daily.

Can I just freeze them with the pits or am going to be in trouble later if I do that?

mmmmm....Michigan cherries. We have some good orchards an hour away, but the produce in MI was amazing. I have a similar German pitter. Works great, except I tend to go too fast and wind up with a few pits. Finding a pit is good luck, yes? At least that's what I told my family for years.

The u-pick strawberries are late this year, so I assume cherries will be late also. We're going to dry a bunch...yum. I have about six pie cherries on my bitty little tree....maybe by the time I retire (when I'm 102) I'll have enough to make a pie.

Gina, you can freeze them with pits in, but they're way easier to handle when they're fresh (I speak from experience).

Nice toy!It sure beats my OXO pitter.

Do not feed cherries to the dogs. None of you will be happy. Don't ask how i know, just trust me. Dad is in the dog house too, cleaning the carpet. Hey, I warned him.

Oh Peppi, poor Dylan got fed too many sweet cherries? I'm not laughing at you, I'm laughing with you. Cooper had his share too and I dealt with that.

Peppi, maybe you have one like mine, a little thing that you hold in your hand, center the cherry and then push the plunger. One.....at.....a.....time. Sigh. It was time consuming and I took NSAIDS for a couple of days for the carpal tunnel after I did that. This is WAY better, heck, I'll probably save the $30 it costs just on pain killers!

Gina, you can freeze them with the pits in, but they are kind of soft when thawed and a lot harder to get the pits out of after freezing. I've frozen cherries with pits but only those meant for jelly, which would involve straining out all the solids anyway.

Annie

Supposed to be 46 F tonight... love Michigan weather.

Nice haul Annie. I took a cherries to work last week and was a fairly popular person. My regular dinner companion had never had a fresh cherry before!... she likes them. I love the little red sour cherries. Grandma had a tree when I was a kid until Grandpa overfilled the herbicide sprayer and killed half his yard.

No cherries for Dolly. Poor dog has been at war with the hornets and they are winning. Don't know where the nest is or I'd help her with chemical weapons.

Oh... and after last weeks rain I finally have red raspberries! Bet if you check there are some on your side of the State.

: )
lyra

Glad you got a gadget that helps out that well Annie?

Now what time do I show up for Cherry pie?

Mmmmm! I made a couple pounds of Maraschino cherries the other day from some sweets, and now that they've had a couple days to suck up the Luxardo, and other goodness I packed them in, I'm looking forward to making my husband a Bourbon Manhattan tonight and seeing what he thinks. They bear no resemblance to those neon HFCS death balls that one normally calls Maraschino cherries.

Here's the recipe I used.

"neon HFCS death balls". ROFLMAO

They aren't healthy but I happen to like maraschino cherries, even the "neon death balls" type. Readinglady sent me a jar of home canned maraschinos, though, and they were a different species altogether. Now THOSE were good, and I don't think they had any booze in them at all.

Michael/Lyra, I saw signs for pick your own raspberries this weekend, now I just have to find a couple of hours between finishing my house painting, tilling the garden, fixing fence so my "rental bull" doesn't escape, taking care of stepmom's finances and this full time job that supports my bad farming habit. (grin) I'd sure love to make some raspberry jam, though...

Annie

Marashcino's remind of Shirley Temples. LOL I always asked for extra cherries in mine.

Cool gadget Annie. Glad to see and read that the MI harvest is underway. We just had our sweet corn festival in Bixby this weekend and next weekend is the Porter Peach Festival. Loving all this fresh local fruit and produce!

David

You're definitely ahead of us, David, although MagicLand is predicting that they'll have the first corn of the season somewhere around July 7. In Michigan, that's amazing.

Peaches are still a far off dream.....

Annie

Those cherries look wonderful. I wish there would be some left in August... oh well (sigh...) OTOH, I picked about 20 lbs of peaches yesterday from a friend's tree. They're small (not enough watering) but really fragrant. Today, I'm making jam. Now if there were any magic gadget that would scald the peaches and remove the skin and pit automatically, I'd buy it in a heartbeat!

Ann

Ann, someone definitely needs to invent THAT! If you're here in August there will probably still be blueberries, the apples will be starting and, of course, there will probably be peaches, since you already have those.

Annie

Slightly OT, but still about cherries...

Has anyone made jam out of yellow cherries? The stand down the street is just getting them, and I thought if it stays yellow it would be so pretty. Does it? Or does it turn into some yucky brownish mess?

rachel, the stuff I've made has oxidized and turned kind of amber, not nearly as pretty. I've often though that I could treat the cherries with my own version of Fruit Fresh (which is a vitamin C capsule cracked open and dissolved in water) and keep them a nice color.

Annie

Oh, and Beverly, come any time. These aren't the sour pie cherries, though, these are the big, dark sweet cherries. Still love 'em, in pies or otherwise.

I'd sure be glad to see you, if you ever do come this way!

annie