A few weeks ago, I found a copy of Ball’s Book of Canning in excellent condition in a free book pile outside someone’s house. I had just made this blog visible to the public, so it seemed serendipitous. There are a lot of simple recipes, and helpful canning notes, perfect for any novice.
The cherries from the past few CSAs had been languishing in the back of the fridge, and I had been putting off my plans to make pickled cherries for various reasons. The recipe from the Ball book (also available online) is my ideal. A sweet, spicy liquid that can be used alongside the sweet fruit it’s preserving. I’ve never pickled fruit, and haven’t been certain where to start or why, but the cherries in syrup I made before (that we have been quickly running through with cocktails, sodas, and drinking vinegars) showed me why.
Despite the relentless humidity, this Friday evening has been cool enough to have multiple burners going at once. So I went for it. I also referenced Marisa’s recipe because she used pint jars (which is all I had available) and omitted the salt that I worried would make the syrup less usable as a mixer. It took all the Rainier cherries I had (less a few in bad shape that I set aside), plus what remained of the dark cherries from the crumble last night. I used apple cider vinegar instead of white, and added peppercorns to the spice blend.
There was still some vanilla vinegar syrup left after canning the cherries, so I added the bad-shape cherries to the pan, boiled it all for about 6 minutes, and let it cool. 2 tablespoons of syrup, plus a cherry, with some sparkling water on top makes an excellent faux drinking vinegar, if you’re wondering.
Rhubarb Season 