Friday, July 11, 2014

Pickled Cherries Recipe


image

Here are all the stages: Cherry-Infused Vinegar at the very front, cherries sitting I vinegar in quart jar at the back, cherries layered with sugar in the middle.

Pretty much straight out of The Joy of Pickling:

Pickled Cherries (an 18th-century recipe)

Ingredients:
Quart jars with lids (I buy plastic screw-on lids for canning jars from Amazon.com)
Pint jars with lids (at least 2 for every 1 quart jar used)
Fresh cherries
White vinegar
White sugar

1. Pit the cherries
2. Stuff cherries into quart jars, filling to about 2 inches from top.
3. Pour white vinegar into quart jars to completely cover cherries.
4. Screw lids onto quart jars and allow to sit for at least 72 hours.
5. Drain off white vinegar--now red and cherry-juice-infused--into clean jars. See below for what to do next with vinegar...
6. Meanwhile, take cherries and layer into pint jars with one cup of white sugar. I normally start with a thin layer of sugar, fill with cherries packed loosely, then pour the rest of sugar into the jar.
7. Screw lids onto these pint jars. DO NOT USE CANNER OR WATER BATH!
8. Store pint jars in closet and return daily to shake them at least once.  This will encourage sugar to dissolve and blend with remaining vinegar inside cherries. Eventually, this will lead to complete dissolving of sugar.
9. These pickled cherries will be good after about one month, but GREAT after about 3 months. Pickled Cherries go great with red meat and as a dressing substitute with your Thanksgiving turkey, in place of cranberry sauce.

Meanwhile...the Cherry-Infused Vinegar

You can just stick a cork into the cherry-juice infused vinegars and give them to friends as gifts or use the vinegar right away in a salad. OR You can boil the vinegar with a small amount of sugar (keep it VERY small and to your taste), then can it in small jars in your water-bath canner for about 10 minutes at sea level (20 minutes up at 3800 feet where I live). Again, these make great gifts. I like to use 8-ounce jars or 4-ounce for this.

Tuesday, July 8, 2014

194: Camelids and Cherry Picking


Please see the shownotes at www.cogknitivepodcast.blogspot.com and on our group on Ravelery.

Episode 194: Camelids and Cherry Picking is live!


Check out this episode!

194:Camelids and Cherry Picking


image

Little Jubilee took herself on a tour of our home this week.

Summer Mindfulness Retreat in Camarillo, CA: July 25, 2014. $50 to attend. We are taking names for the wait-list.
Game plan:
Limited to 10-15 people
Mindfulness lessons, meditation, self-hypnosis training by the ocean.
Road trips to local yarn shops.
Road trips to local high-end outlet malls.

Info is here. Come have a fun weekend by the sea of meditation, mindfulness, and shopping with your fiber-buddies! We are going to have a mellow, fun, relaxing few days together to feel good and hang out.)

(PSSSST: Dizzy Blondes may be bringing some yarn to Camp Cog!)

Philly Camp CogKnitive is still in planning stages--no date yet. Hotel and other suggestions welcome.

We are up to 11 people.

CFR 6 is coming! Oct 11. 2014!
 
More information here! Sign-ups for people who have already attended HAVE BEGUN! Sign ups for newbies begin JULY 1st!

Celebrating our listeners who have joined the CogKnitive 25 – , 50 –, and 75 – Bear Clubs for MBP. You can see who they all are right here. Great work!

Have YOU completed 25, 50, or 75 bears for Mother Bear Project? Send me your snail and a link to your Ravelry projects page, and CogKnitive will send you a special wristband to celebrate with you.

Add yourself to our CogKNITive Listeners Map.

We have a website at http://www.cogknitive.com/. You can find older episodes there.

You can now subscribe to the BLOG on your Kindle or Kindle app.

I am gemmadw on  Twitter and Pinterest, DoeWalking on geocaching.com, and DrGemma on Plurk.
Geocaching: www.geocaching.com. I am DoeWalking, if you would like to be geo-pals.

What's On My Hooks, Needles, and Spindles:

Not yet finished:
The OHM Shawl by Michelle Miller .
One Row Lace Scarf
The Blueberry Waffle Socks in colorway Witchwind from Forbidden Woolery
Halloween Linen Stitch Cowl



Tutorial for the After-Thought Heel is here.

Dizzy Blondes: 

Plans for Tour de Fleece 2014 are discussed.

Ranch of the Oaks now has my camelid fiber for processing and expect to have it done by CFR6! And I had a blast touring Solvang, founded to be a Danish town. So I had smorgasbord and enjoyed the scenery.

Quechua before and after her haircut: BEFORE:

image

AFTER:

image

Strategy:

Stop running to the shrine of your fears.

Put a Lid On It:
I went cherry picking for the first time and scored over 10 pounds of really perfect Bing cherries:

BEFORE:

image

PITTED:

image

Aw Shoot!

Roxy/Tirion Du is helping me to exercise. Waaaay too much info re: how to use your legs on a horse.

image

Summer Running Essentials:
Please remember to hydrate you and any running pals.
Important facts:
one gallon of water weighs 8.3 pounds
Any mammal can carry only up to one quarter of its weight.

Ruffwear backpacks for dogs.

Something I Really Like:

Cherry harvesting for myself! I didn't have to climb any trees, I scored all sorts of neat info about cherries and ripeness, bought local honey, and then...got down to pitting. For days. But the canning, snacking, and pickling have been exquisite!

image

Mint Jelly, Pickled cherries (in back), Simply Delicious Cherry Chutney, amaretto-cherry Jam. (above)

image

The stages of Cherry Pickles: cherries in quart jar with vinegar, cherries layered with sugar for final stage, cherry-infused vinegar in front. (above)

The recipe for the pickles is on Pinterest on my board I LOVE FOOD! and also on the blog at www.cogknitivepodcast.blogspot.com.

Blather:

A loving and regretful farewell to Karen, KnitterCritter.

Solvang meanderings, camelid shearing, general CFR news.

My dinner at the smorgasbord in Solvang:

image

A Danish windmill in Solvang:

image