But then I went on vacation and missed the harvest at Mood’s. Yet again.

Oh well, I thought. Isn’t eating locally all about learning that food is all about timing?

But to my surprise, some of our market’s Pennsylvania farmers showed up with a few boxes of sour cherries. I bought three pints for $3 each and dived in. I ended up with 4 pints of absolutely divine sour cherry preserves, then promptly opened one jar back up to serve to friends. And next year, I’ll pick my own and can all I want. Really.

Sour Cherry Preserves

3 pints sour cherries, pitted
2 1/2 c. sugar
Juice of one lemon
1 T real vanilla (or use a bean)
1 cinnamon stick

1) Combine all of the ingredients in a pot and bring to a boil. This is never going to gel, but bring it close to the gelling point. I used a candy thermometer and cooked it to 214°F (at sea level). Fish out the cinnamon stick and the vanilla bean, if you’re using them, and turn off the heat.

2) Meanwhile, bring a large pot of water to a boil and prepare 4 half-pint jars. Prepare your lids. Transfer the hot preserves to the hot jars and adjust the two-piece lids. Process in a boiling-water bath for 10 minutes.

Cherry Raspberry Jam

1 quart fresh raspberries, cleaned
Approximately 1 quart frozen cherries—less if you froze them without the pits
3 cups sugar—more if you used cherries that were frozen without sugar
1 T fresh lemon juice

1) Gently mix the raspberries and the sugar in a big pot and bring them to a boil. Meanwhile, pit the cherries, if necessary. Add them to the pot with the lemon juice.

2) Boil the mixture to the gelling point, stirring constantly. Forget what I said earlier this summer about 218°F—cook it to 214°F for the perfect spreadable texture.

3) Meanwhile, prepare a boiling water bath, 5 half-pint jars, and 5 lids. (You’ll probably only need 4, but better to have an extra than to come up short.) When the jam’s ready, transfer the hot jam into the hot jars and adjust the lids. Process for 10 minutes.

The lighting doesn’t quite do these jars justice: they’re a really lovely combination of gold (from the peaches) and deep red (from the cherries). I’m thinking they’ll make beautiful and tasty yogurt parfaits.

Peach, Cherry, and Apple Compote

2 lbs peaches
1 lb cherries
Approx 1 c dried apples, cut into small pieces
2 c sugar

1) Peel the peaches by dipping them briefly in boiling water. Slip off the skins and cut them into slices or large chunks. Pit the cherries.

2) Throw everything in a pot and bring to a boil. You don’t want to cook it too long—just long enough that only some of the fruit breaks down and you get a nice, fruity syrup. This took about 20 minutes.

3) Meanwhile, if you plan to can the compote, sterilize some jars (mine made 4 pints) and heat up some lids. Process in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes. You can freeze, if you prefer.

Now, you may ask, what do I do with these berries? For starters, you can just eat them. They also make really lovely winter fruit compotes when combined with dried apricots. But personally, I love them in meat stews.

Beef Stew with Dried Fruit

2 lbs beef stew meat
1 c red wine
salt and pepper
a few sprigs of fresh thyme
1 medium onion, chopped
1 T olive oil
1 c combined dried fruit (cherries, apples, apricots, and/or prunes)
About 2 c. of assorted stew vegetables, chopped (carrots, turnips, parsnips, etc.)
1 T cornstarch (optional)

1) At least an hour or up to 12 hours before cooking, season the meat with salt and pepper and marinate in the wine. Nestle the thyme sprigs in the meat.

2) Saute the onion in the oil in your pressure cooker (using it as a pot) for a few minutes, until translucent. Add the meat and the juices (including the wine and the thyme). Add another cup of water. Screw on and lock the lid. Cook at 15 pounds of pressure for 8 minutes, then release the pressure quickly. (For refreshers on pressure cooking, see this post.)

3) CAREFULLY open the lid and add the dried fruit and chopped vegetables. Put the lid back on. Bring back up to pressure and cook 2 minutes more, then release the pressure quickly.

4) CAREFULLY open the lid. Now you’re going to use the pressure cooker like a big pot again. Bring the mixture back up to a boil and cook until the liquid is reduced to the consistency that you like. If you prefer, mix up a little bit of cornstarch in a couple of tablespoons of cold water and add that to the pot.

I like to eat this over couscous, but it would work equally well with polenta or rice if you’re gluten free. It’s also a terrific way to eat venison. Just cook it a little longer (more like 15 minutes in the first round) to make sure that it gets tender.

To recap the advantages, disadvantages, and steps for the various systems:

Individually Quick Frozen

Clean your fruit and rinse it in ice-cold water. Dry it off. Spread it in a single layer on a cookie sheet and stick in your coldest freezer for a couple of hours until entirely frozen (somewhere around 2 to 4 hours). Transfer to freezer bags, and double-bag for safety.

Pros: can remove as many or as few berries as you’d like; they thaw quickly; no added sugar.
Cons: greater risk of freezer burn; flavor not preserved as well; ideally should be kept in a deep freezer, as the cycles of a refrigerator freezer may cause berries to melt and refreeze

Sugared Berries

Clean your berries and rinse in ice-cold water. Toss with sugar, which will vary depending on the kind of fruit. For strawberries, use 3/4 c. per qt; sweet cherries: 3/4 c. per qt; blueberries, 1/2 c. per qt. Transfer to a container with rigid sides and freeze.

Pros: excellent flavor and minimal work. Just toss with sugar, stuff in containers, and forget about them. Will keep for at least a year, maybe more.
Cons: you have to thaw out the entire container, and of course this requires a lot of sugar.

We’ll report the results this winter, or next year, whenever we get around to eating them.

Let’s talk a little bit about set. If you want a quick-cooking firm set, your best option is to use pectin. I’m not a huge fan of pectin, mainly because I like the concept of a jam made solely from fruit and sugar. Also, if I happen to mess up my jam, I would prefer that it be too loose rather than too hard. Ergo, I don’t use pectin. This means that my jam-making is somewhat unpredictable, depending on the weather, the ripeness of the fruit, and my patience in the kitchen. I didn’t cook the strawberry jam quite long enough, and it turned out more like a sauce (albeit a delicious one). Then I overcorrected with the gooseberries and ended up with something a bit more gluey (again, quite tasty, but difficult to spread). Cookbooks will tell you to cook your jam to 228°F, but I am convinced this is too long. All of these jams were cooked to somewhere between 215° and 218°F. The set is just about right—maybe a tad on the firm side, but more or less like what you would find in a store-bought jam. The real key is to get it above boiling. As soon as the thermometer moves above 212°, you’ll see a change in texture. If you like a soft set, you can stop right there. Don’t double the recipe, as you’ll never get there.

Before you dive in, check out this refresher on canning equipment from Food in Jars, one of my favorite blogs. She’s got lots of great advice on jams and all sort of preserves, so poke around her site if you’re feeling confused. And, as always, the National Center for Home Food Preservation has good advice. The instructions below are for the actual cooking part. When the jam is done, transfer them to hot, sterilized Mason jars, top with hot rubber-ringed lids, and process in a boiling water bath for 5 or 10 minutes, depending on whether you’re working with half-pint or pint jars. They’ll keep for at least a year or two without losing much flavor.

Cherry Jam

3 pounds sweet cherries
2 1/2 c. sugar
2 T lemon juice

Pit the berries and crush them (I like to use a potato masher). Put then in a big pot with the sugar and the lemon juice and bring rapidly to a boil. Cook until it reaches the gelling point (around 30 minutes, could be more depending on the fruit), then transfer to sterilized jars. Process. Makes 3 or 4 half-pints depending on how long you cook it.

Cherry and Blueberry Jam

2 pounds sweet cherries
2 c. blueberries
3 c. sugar

Pit the cherries and combine with the blueberries. Crush and transfer to a big pot. Add the sugar and bring rapidly to a boil. Cook until it reaches the gelling point (around 30 minutes). Transfer to clean jars and process. Makes 3 or 4 half-pints depending on how long you cook it.

Blueberry Lime Jam

The lime is subtle. It both adds a little bit of pectin and somehow brings out the flavor of the blueberries without adding an overt citrus flavor.

5 c. blueberries
5 c. sugar
1/3 c. lime juice
zest from one lime

Crush the berries. Combine all ingredients in a large pot and bring rapidly to a boil. Because the sugar content it higher, this one will come to the gel point more quickly, somewhere in the vicinity of 20 minutes. This means you’ll get more jam: 4 or 5 half-pints. Process.

Peach Jam

6 c. peaches
4 c. sugar
2 T. lemon juice

Peel the peaches by dipping them briefly in boiling water (the skins should slide right off). Crush the peaches and combine the ingredients in a large pot. Bring rapidly to a boil and cook until you reach the gelling point: somewhere around 30 minutes. Makes 3 or 4 half-pints.

Rowand doesn’t have a Web site, but it’s near Glassboro, New Jersey. Blueberries and peaches are from the ever-dependable Mood’s. All were a fabulous deal: $1.50/lb for cherries, $1.15/lb for blueberries, and $0.85/lb for peaches. Happy picking!