Chimmey cherry? Cherry Chunga?

So this past weekend was a very busy weekend for canning. All cherries. Cherry pie filling, cherry jam, cherries in syrup. I managed to score 12 quarts of sour cherries and 6 quarts of sweet cherries.
The sweet cherries I simply canned in a medium syrup to be enjoyed later. The sour cherries all became jam and pie filling

all the canned jars

7 jars of sweet cherries canned in medium syrup

6 small jars of sour pie filling. These actually weren't part of the 12 quarts I bought. They were from a big bowl that I picked from my parents sour cherry tree. They were super ripe so when I added the cherries to the pie filling mix (sugar, water and corn starch) it went really liquidy. Its more like cherries in syrup than anything

The first half of the cherry jam I made using a recipe from the Bernardin canning book. This recipe called for 5 cups of sugar for every 4 cups of cherries. It turned out super sweet and very liquidy. Not my favourite recipe and I probably wouldnt do it again. This was done with sour cherries but because of all the sugar it was so sweet that Talia labeled them as Sweet cherry jam

After the failed attempt of making jam I search for another recipe and found a "no recipe recipe" for cherry jam. This one used only 3 cups of sugar for every 4 cups of cherries and required a lot more boiling to thicken up the jam. It also uses the juice and zest of 1 lemon to help thicken it. I love this recipe and will definitely be doing it from now on. There are actually 2 more jars but at the time of taking pictures they were still processing in the canner

On an unrelated note, Talia got my a present on sunday. A Dr. Hooves vinyl figure. He currently lives on my desk at work (where I have met another brony like myself... part of me thinks the only reason Talia gave this to me was to get me to talk to the other brony).

But I digress. After chatting with Talia about figures for a nice long bus ride I decided that I wanted to make my own. I have actually been working on a 3d model of DJ pon3 in maya but I decided I wanted to try making it on my own. So on sunday night after canning all the cherries I sat watching mlp while attempting to sculpt a pony. I did make a head as well but the weight was wrong and the front legs couldnt support the head. I ended up destroying it while trying to shrink it but that was before I got the camera out.

I eventually scrapped the whole project because it wasnt working out for me but I would say this was sufficient enough of a success to try again. Oh, this was made using sculpy.

~(' ')~

sweet sunday tradition continues

So a while ago Talia, Talia's best friend, and I  started a tradition of making sweet desserts on Sundays. It wasn't so much of a tradition as something that just happend a lot. And this Sunday is no different (except Tashy couldn't make it :(

Several weeks ago I decided to make a sorted food banofee pie for Tashy's birthday and in order to do that I had to make toffee by boiling condensed milk in its can. I did this and it turned out deliciously sweet. The bad part was I was left over with a small amount of extra toffee that has just been sitting in the fridge since then. So on the way home from adventures today I decided to drop by the store and pick up mini tart shells and a banana just to make mini bite sized pies... But after spending all afternoon and evening canning jam I decided to switch it up a bit.

Step 1: bake tart shells. Sadly I forgot to take pictures.

Step 2: fill with toffee. (the sweet stuff)

Step 3: add a slice of banana (the surprize)

Step 4: hide under a dollop home make red current jam (the tart - we like tart jams)

Step 5: enjoy and teat Tashy who couldn't be here :P

and let the canning begin

Couple of cooking updates. First was my first ever beer can chicken. I followed the recipe on sorted food (http://sortedfood.com/#!/search/chicken/) and it turned out fairly nicely. The chicken I used was quite a bit larger so in 45 minutes it wasnt completely cooked. The other difference was that my chicken has a hole by the neck so the beer (or in my case pear cider) didnt steam as much as it was supposed to.

The reason for this was that we arranged to get a really nice free range chicken from the St. Lawrence market.

While we were at the market Talia also found that the cucumbers were on sale so she decided she wanted to make some traditional russian pickels. After some excitement with her family and a story about a thumb being cut off she got the recipie. Unfortunately it required a black current leaf... having no place to get black current leaves around us we decided to travel over to my parents who have one in their back yard.

After a quick trip to the fabricland there and a stop for dinner we arrived at my parents to get the leaves... Only to find out that the cherry tree in the front yard was full of tasty sour cherries and my parents were away at the cottage. At this point we decided to pick them before the birds got to them all.

After spending a while pitting them I ended up which a nice batch of cherries. These badboys got processed into a cherry pie filling which is currently still processing but I do have some picks. The recipe I used came from here (http://www.simplebites.net/summer-canning-series-cherry-pie-filling-recipe/)

On a side note, last Thursday my parents came over to drop off a large batch of red currents that my Mom had picked. I spent Thursday night cleaning them with my Mom and them froze them for when I had a chance to make them today.

I modified this recipe (http://foodpreservation.about.com/od/Preserves/r/Red-Currant-Jam-Recipe.htm) because I had more red currents. Despise starting with 1.3 kg of currents I ended up only with 3 small jars of current jam.

~(' ')~

home made crisps

So I finally managed to get a chance to do some cooking today. It's been a busy month. So last weekend we picked up some kale because Talia tasted kale chips on the long weekend and despite saying she "Loathes Kale" she quite enjoyed it.

Recipe:
1 head of kale
3 pinches of salt
3 tsp paprika
6 tbsp of coconut oil.

So first I removed the stalk from the kale because I am told it is bitter. Then I washed the leaves and did a spin dry to make sure they were ad dry as possible. Then it was into a big bowl with 2 tbsp of oil, 1 tsp of paprika, and a pinch of salt. I did it in 3 batches of kale because the pizza trays would only hold about a third of the head of kale. I tossed the pale in the bowl and mixed it all together.
I spread the kale out on the trays and tossed in the oven at 375F for 15 minutes.

In total it took aboutn an hour (in most of which was me waiting) and I needed 7 pizza trays (2 would fit in the oven at a time)

singing in the rain