Chapter 29 Bettina Puts Up Fruit continued

How It Tasted

Currant Jelly

Wonderful! The jelly amazed us all by coming out just right: sweet with just a touch of pucker power, nice color, and a perfect texture.

Pretty amazing since, as noted before, I’ve never made jelly in my life. The one downside to the project was how much it cost to make.

Thirty-five dollars for this!

Canned Cherries

Filip: Are they safe?

Apparently all my mutterings and rumblings about the dangers of improperly canned food reached the ears of the troops—both Husband and Son showed some trepidation about eating these.

Of course I reassured them and the cherries did get eaten but, quite honestly, they really couldn’t compare to the imported bottled stuff I buy at Trader Joe’s. In fact, by that yardstick these oversized globs were a washout—too sweet, too dark (almost black), and disconcertingly chewy.

Cherry Pie Filling

Frankly, I was far more interested in the homemade piecrust than the filling. The crust I made for the rhubarb pie a couple of weeks ago came out so well I was curious to see if I could top myself.

In short: no.

The bottled cherries in the pie managed to flood the pan with juice—I’m rather thankful the floor of the oven didn’t get covered with overflow. But the pie was so runny I could have wrung it out like a sponge. Yes, there was a crust in the pan but like a life raft it was merely a soggy slab floating on an ocean of wet. Yuck.

Would I Make This Again?

The jelly, sure. I really was amazed that it came out so well, especially as I added no extra pectin to the mixture. But I’m anxious to try it again albeit with more reasonably-priced fruit.

Unfortunately the canned cherries were a complete waste of time. It probably would have been different if I’d had fresh ones to work with, but frozen cherries are absolutely not worth the effort of processing.

And the pie—eesh! an absolute disaster. The crust I labored over was completely swamped by the cherry juice, and by next morning it had vanished—straight to Davey Jones’ locker at the bottom of the pan.