Last
week I harvested the ripe cherries from my tree and my harvest was
great. So I spent the entire day pitting the cherries for pie and
freezing the leftover cherries for fall season pies, muffins, and
cobblers. In
the past, my harvest has been small and there were never enough
cherries left over for putting up. But this year I thought it would
be really nice to have cherries on hand for pie in the fall.
I wasn't certain as to how to put up fresh cherries so I asked my husband, the chef, and he told me to wash the cherries in cold water, remove the stems, cut in half and take out the pit. Next get out your cookie sheets and line them with wax paper or parchment paper, I had parchment paper so that is what I used.
Set the half side up on the wax paper, the cherries are a single layer and they should not touch each other because they will freeze together. Freeze the cherries. When the cherries are completely frozen, in approximately 5 to 6 hours to be fully frozen, Remove the cherries from the freezer, then transfer them into freezer zip lock bags, or other product that has airtight seal. Then freeze the bagged cherries until they are needed for your fall recipes.
Know that getting fresh cherries ready for freezing, freezing them and then transferring them into freezer bags is not hard to do. BUT if you harvest the cherries in the morning and then follow all of these steps, you will be spending the entire day putting up your cherries. So why not make a fresh cherry pie on the same day that your prep cherries for freezing.
Personally while those cherries are freezing it sure would be nice to have a slice of pie.
