Boozy Cherries

 

What is it about fruit and booze that just screams the holidays? Honestly, it may seem strange, but it’s true. At no other time of the year am I as keen on soaking fruit in alcohol than I am around the holidays. If you feel the same and are looking for a tantalizing new recipe, you’ll find one in Abrams’ new release, Arty Parties, An Entertaining Cookbook by Julia Sherman, creator of the charmingly cute Salad for President.

If you are one of those people who pounce on cherries as soon as they’re available in the summer and freeze them, I hope you froze at least one and a half pounds of sour cherries in order to make this delicious treat. They last in the fridge up to a year, and make mixed drinks, ice cream sundaes, and Sunday morning pancakes extra special when topped with one of these. If not, I tried it with well-dried frozen cherries, with good results.

Boozy Cherries

1½ lb. sour cherries
1½ c. light brown sugar
6 whole cloves
1 t. black peppercorns
1 cinnamon stick
2 whole star anise
1 large strip orange zest
1 c. vodka

Wash the cherries thoroughly, leaving attached stems in tact and removing any loose stems from the bunch. Pack half of the cherries into a large glass mason jar, being careful not to squish them.

In a saucepan, combine the sugar, 1½ cups of water, cloves, peppercorns, cinnamon, star anise, and orange zest. Bring to a boil, then lower to a simmer and cook for 45 minutes until reduced by half. Remove from the heat and allow to cool for 15 minutes.

Add the vodka to the cold syrup. Pour the mixture over the cherries to just cover (spices and zest included). Fill the jar with the remaining cherries and top off with the hot liquid. Allow to cool, then seal and refrigerate. The cherries will be ready to eat after two weeks.

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

 Disclaimer: I received a complementary copy of Arty Parties from Abrams books as a member of their 20 21–22 Abrams Dinner Party.

Not Your Momma’s Pretzel Salad

Pretzel Salad has been around for a long time. My first taste of it came somewhere in the 70s, and I loved it then the same way that I love it now. I’ve eaten a lot of it over the years, served to me by a lot of people. What I have learned from this is that very few people know how to properly make it. One pretzel salad that I had is particularly memorable, because there were big chunks of pretzel in the crust! Let me ask you, when you have a graham cracker crust, are there big chunks of graham cracker in that crust? No! And there should not be big chunks of pretzel in a pretzel crust. Pretzels should be treated in the same way in which graham crackers are treated.

The filling should be wonderfully creamy. For this to happen, the cream cheese needs to be at room temperature, and the topping needs to be thawed. This is one of those cases where I do use Cool Whip and I like it, and make no apologies.

Now let’s talk about the Jell-O. It needs to be made by the quickset method, refrigerated for a short while, and poured on top so that it’s not going to sink down through the layers and into the pretzel base. I was once served a pretzel salad where the Jell-O had apparently been poured on right after being made. It seeped all of the way down completely covering the pretzel layer turning it into a gelatinous mass. What you want is a beautifully layered salad.

If you want your pretzel salad to be memorable in a positive way, rather than the negative ways that I’ve mentioned above, I’m going to tell you exactly how to do it. One thing that’s going to make it particularly easy, is to do two of the layers in the food processor. You will get a beautiful crust if you pulverize your pretzels in the food processor, and then just wipe it out with a paper towel, replace the work bowl onto the base, and mix the filling ingredients in there as well. It turns out perfectly every time. I find strawberries in pretzel salad to be a bit cloying and mundane, so I like to use cherries. I find more people like a cherry topping than they do one of strawberries. If you want to make an adults only version of pretzel salad, you might try using bourbon or brandy-soaked cherries. Talk about delicious!

Here’s the way that I make a pretzel salad, and I’ve never tasted one better.

Not Your Momma’s Pretzel Salad

1 8-ounce bag mini pretzel twists
3 tablespoons granulated sugar
1/2 cup butter, melted
1 8-ounce pkg. cream cheese, room temperature, I mean it!
1 8-ounce container Cool Whip, thawed
2 4-ounce packages cherry Jell-O
1 12-ounce can pitted bing or morello cherries, 

or fresh, pitted, if in season

Preheat oven to 350° F.

Pour the pretzels into the work bowl of your food processor. Pulse until they have been reduced to fine crumbs. Add sugar and melted butter, and pulse until combined. Turn out into a 9” x 13” pan pressing into the bottom. Bake for 10 minutes, remove from oven and allow to cool.

Wipe out the bowl of your food processor and add cream cheese and sugar. Pulse until combined. Add Cool Whip and process until smooth and creamy. Pour over the cooled crust.

Make Jell-O according to the “quickset“ directions. I use 2 cups of boiling water for two packages, and 1-3/4 cups of ice water. Place in refrigerator for 30 to 40 minutes, (checking at 30 minutes) until it has thickened, but is still pourable. Meanwhile, place the cherries in whatever design you see fit on top of the cream layer. When the Jell-O is ready (no more than 40 minutes), carefully pour over the cherries. Place pan in refrigerator and allow to chill completely, 3 to 4 hours. Cut into squares and serve. Keeps, refrigerated, for 3 days.

PRINT RECIPE

This post is linked to:

Celebrate Your Story

Inspire Me Tuesday

The Scoop

Bourbon-Soaked Cherries

Cherries? I love 'em, but cherry season is all too brief to suit my liking. In order to preserve the season for as long as possible, I have “preserved” some cherries using Tasting Table's fabulous recipe for Bourbon-Soaked Cherries. Oh, my.  Step aside Cherries Jubilee! These luscious, flavorful, boozy cherries turn a scoop of ice cream into an elegant dessert.  You will never again feel at a loss when unwanted surprise guests knock at your door.  

Serving cocktails?  Toss one into a fruity drink. Even a glass of sparkling water can benefit from one of these. Have some extra time?  Pat them dry and dip them into melted chocolate for an over-the-top sweet surprise. Once prepared and stored in the fridge, there is nothing additional that you need to do but soak up the compliments and enjoy!

Bourbon-Soaked Cherries

Recipe from the Tasting Table Test kitchen

1 cup bourbon

⅔ cup sugar

¼ cup fresh orange juice

1 1-inch strip orange peel

1½ teaspoon vanilla extract

½ pound cherries, pitted

Combine the bourbon, sugar, orange juice and orange peel in a small saucepan. Place over medium-high heat and bring to a simmer, whisking constantly until the sugar dissolves, about 5 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat and whisk in the vanilla extract.

Combine the bourbon mixture and the cherries in a 15-ounce sterilized container and seal. Allow the contents to cool to room temperature before transferring to the refrigerator. Chill for at least three days before using. The cherries will keep for up to 1 month.

This post is linked to:

Create It Thursday

Inspiration Gallery Thursday
Home and Garden Thursday

Full Plate Thursday

Home Sweet Home

Be Inspired Friday

Feathered Nest Friday

Show and Tell Friday 

Foodie Friday

Cherry Limeade Bars

When it comes to my two sons, the apple didn’t fall far from the maternal tree.  They are as adept at cooking and baking as I was at that age.  Lucky them, they live in the age of the Internet where recipes, reviews, and helpful hints are only a few touch strokes away.  My younger son is the guest chef today.  Like his mother he’ll Google ingredients just to see what he comes up with.  He loves maraschino cherries (we could not keep them in the house when he was a kid, though we ended up with loads of jars full of juice and perhaps the remnant of a cherry), and key lime, so Googled those ingredients and found this recipe on the Cheeky Kitchen blog.  He whipped up a batch and brought them over for me to sample and photograph.

Tasty and with a lot of zing from the lime juice, these make a most refreshing summer dessert.

My son, Andrew, who really loves his food!

Cherry Limeade Bars
1 c. flour

½ c. butter, softened
¼ c. powdered sugar
Dash of salt

6 oz. can maraschino cherries, undrained
½ Tbsp. cornstarch

3 eggs
1 ¼ c. sugar
3 Tbsp. flour
¼ c. key lime juice

Green Gel Food Coloring

Preheat oven to 350° F.  In a large bowl, combine flour, butter, powdered sugar, salt and flour until well mixed.  Press into the bottom of a 9”×9” baking pan. Pour the entire, undrained can of maraschino cherries into a blender, add cornstarch, and blend until well chopped (but not pureed).  Using a spatula, carefully spread the cherry mixture over the crust mixture.

Bake for 15 minutes.

In a large bowl, beat together remaining ingredients. Pour over cooked crust and cherry mixture. Return to oven and bake an additional 20-25 minutes, or until the mixture has set. Allow to cool completely before cutting into bars.

This post is linked to:

On the Menu Monday

Totally Tasty Tuesdays

Try a New Recipe Tuesday

What's Cooking Wednesday

Wow Us Wednesday

Foodie Friday

Sweets for a Saturday

Bing Cherry Lemonade

A week of temperatures in the hundreds with another week of the same ahead, and who knows what’s after that?!  Weather like this calls for something cool and refreshing.  This pretty and delicious drink has been just the ticket for me the past couple of days, and makes good use of the abundance of bing cherries this time of the year.  I can’t get enough of them, so am only too pleased to be able to enjoy them in as many forms as possible.  This recipe serves six, but can be doubled or even tripled if you have a crowd.

Bing Cherry Lemonade

½ cup granulated sugar

½ cup water

1 cup pitted Bing cherries

½ cup freshly squeezed lemon juice

3 cups cold water

Gratings of fresh ginger (optional)

Place sugar and water into a medium saucepan and heat, stirring occasionally, until sugar is dissolved.  Add ½ cup of cherries and bring to a boil.  (For added zing, you can stir in about 1/8 teaspoon of freshly grated ginger, if you like.)  Boil 5-6 minutes to soften cherries; mash slightly with a fork.  Set mixture aside to cool.

Strain cooled syrup into a pitcher, pressing on fruit to squeeze out juices.  Add lemon juice, water, and the remaining cherries.  Pour over ice and garnish with a slice of lemon and a sprig of mint.

Yield: 1 quart

This post is linked to:

On the Menu Monday

Totally Tasty Tuesdays

Try a New Recipe Tuesday

What's Cooking Wednesday

Wow Us Wednesday

Foodie Friday

Sweets for a Saturday

Seasonal Sunday

Sunday's Best Party

Chocolate Dipped Rainier Cherries

If you don’t have one, run out right now and buy yourself a cherry pitter.  It’s one of those tools that you never knew you needed until you have one, and then you’ll wonder how you ever got along without it.  Any small fruit with a pit can be dealt with using a cherry pitter, and this includes the jar of green olives that you bought by mistake thinking they were the ones stuffed with pimiento, but I digress.  Practicality aside, there is something so peaceful and down home about pitting cherries.  I put it right up there with shelling peas and stringing beans.  To some it probably seems like a chore, but to me, it’s a satisfying way of celebrating the bounty of summer.

Another satisfying way is to indulge in one of my favorite fruits, those blushing beauties, Rainier cherries, just beginning to come into season.  They are delicious as is, but dip them into dark chocolate and I guess it’s about as close to heaven as you can get.  And, if you don’t over indulge, you have a good-for-you snack that is going to satisfy mind, body, and soul.  High in fiber, cherries are also an important source of potassium, vitamin C, antioxidants, and micronutrients. The best part (aside from the taste), is that one cup of cherries contains only 90 calories!  Yes, the chocolate is going to add a few more, but is well worth it when you consider the cardiovascular benefits.  Quick, easy, healthy, delicious, these have to be the perfect snack food.  Oh, and if you really want to indulge (and dazzle), plop one of these on top of your favorite ice cream sundae.

Chocolate Dipped Rainier Cherries

1 cup Ghirardelli 60% Cacao Bittersweet Chocolate Chips

1 pound Melissa's Rainier Cherries

Tear off enough parchment to cover a cookie sheet, place parchment on top and set aside.

Place cherries in a colander, rinse thoroughly and allow to dry.  Using your new favorite cherry pitter tool, pit cherries from the side, leaving the stem intact. Set aside.

Pour chocolate chips into the top of a double boiler and place over water that is just simmering.  As they begin to melt, stir chocolate until smooth and then turn heat to the lowest setting. Holding cherries by stems, drag, one at a time, through the melted chocolate.  When they are covered to your liking (you can immerse the entire cherry, or, as I did, leave a bit of the fruit peeking out the top), and place on the parchment paper to set.

This post is linked to:

Foodie Friday

Sweets for a Saturday

Seasonal Sunday

Bing Cherry Sauce

"Man it's hot. It's like Africa hot. Tarzan couldn't take this kind of hot." 

-- Eugene Morris Jerome (played by Matthew Broderick), Biloxi Blues (1988)

I can't tell you how many times this quote has gone through my head this past month.  It is hot!  If you're anything like me, when the temperatures creep into the upper nineties and low hundreds, you're thinking something cool and refreshing.  If you like ice cream (and who doesn't?), here is a topping that you're going to love.  It is made from fresh bing cherries -- so it just has to be good for you, right? -- and is delicious on top of a big scoop of French vanilla.  This is actually a recipe for cherry pancake topping that I found on epicurious.com, but I find it tastes so much better on ice cream; warmed slightly, it is decadent.

BING CHERRY SAUCE

1/2 cup (or more) water, divided

2 teaspoons cornstarch

1 tablespoon unsalted butter

2 cups halved, pitted fresh Bing cherries

1 tablespoons packed golden brown sugar

1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

Whisk together 1/4 cup water and cornstarch in a small bowl.  Melt butter in medium nonstick skillet over medium heat.  Add cherries, 1/4 cup water, and brown sugar; stir until sugar dissolved.  

Increase heat to medium-high; add cornstarch mixture and stir until mixture oils and thickens, adding water by tablespoonfuls if sauce is very thick, about 1 minute.

Remove from heat, stir in lemon juice.  

Grab a spoon!

 

This OXO cherry pitter is my gadget of choice for pitting cherries.
Click the image for more details.