Sweet Cherry Jam...

The other day I decided I needed to do a little "domesticating"...yah, cause I am just not busy enough!
Anyhow, Daddy Dearest was away on a hike with "the guys" so Jax and I headed off to gather supplies.
First we picked up some jars (I needed some for another project I will post shortly) at Canadian Tire - we selected the Bernardin 500ml (2 cups) jars as they are a generous size! Then we headed off to Calgary CO-OP - they had cherries on sale for $1.99lb and they were the perfect ripeness for our needs. We also were able to find Certo Light there and it is pretty difficult to come by for some weird reason!?! For this project, we bought 4.5kg's of cherries and 4 boxes of Certo Lite.
Then it was home to start the preparation for the Sweet Cherry Freezer Jam - here is the recipe that I used - it was from the "What's Cooking Kraft" website.
Here it is (with my notes added):

Sweet Cherry Freezer Jam
Ingredients:
4 cups of finely chopped pitted cherries
2 tbsp. lemon juice
3 cups of sugar
1 box of Certo Light Pectin Crystals

Make it:
Wash and pit all your cherries. I used my cherry pitter that I bought a couple of years ago (I believe the brand is XOXO) and then I put the cherries into my handy dandy Tupperware Powerchef System with the chopper blade - 12 pulls. I chopped them in batches and got them all ready ahead of time.
It is important to note that IF YOU ARE DOUBLING, TRIPLING, or QUADRUPLING the recipe - you MUST do it in single recipe quantities - I don't know why but "my mother told me so" is a good enough answer for me! Something about the pectin not working properly.
Measure the prepared cherries into a non-color absorbing bowl (another VERY IMPORTANT STEP) so your nice green tupperware bowls don't end up with cherry juice stains down them. Just saying'!
Measure your sugar and set aside.
Combine fruit pectin crystals with a 1/4 cup of the measured out sugar.
Add pectin mixture to the prepared cherries, mixing well. Let stand 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Stir in the remaining 2 and 3/4 cups of sugar and continue stirring for 3 minutes until most of the sugar is dissolved.
Pour into clean, sanitized jars (I ran my through the dishwasher on a hot sanitize cycle just prior to filling). Cover with tight lids and let stand at room temperature until they are set (may take up to 24 hours).
Store in freezer. If used within 3 weeks, jam may be stored in the fridge.
This recipe yielded 11 and 3/4 - 500 ml jars of yummy sweet cherry jam.
I had about 1 cup of minced cherries & juice left over and decided to make an awesome cherry & port sauce for our BBQ'ed pork chops we had for dinner that night!

Look at these luscious little gems! Washed and ready to be pitted...

Removing the pits from these little guys took about 1/2 hour....

Ever wondered how many pits your get from 5kg's of cherries?

And finally I am done!!!

Next I filled my Powerchef half full of pitted cherries...

And pulled the cord about 12 times - give or take -...

I did this in batches to keep my consistency the same...

When I was done chopping them all up, it was time to measure them out and make the jam. As I mentioned above because I Quadrupled the recipe, I did 4 separate bowls...

Once the recipe was complete...I poured them into 500ml jars and sealed them up...

But they were looking a little lame-o so I opened up Photoshop and created some simple yet elegant labels for the tops of the jars...and voila!!!

Ready for the freezer - or for whomever was lucky enough to receive a jar from Bootybella's kitchen!!!
Until next time...
~MWAH
Bootybella