So I made George and Juli’s Rosemary Sun Dried Tomato Meatballs with Tomato Sauce from The Paleo Kitchen and they were awesome, BUT I had a bunch of rosemary left over. Well I started canning (mostly pickled things) earlier this year and one of my favorite canning blogs, Food in Jars had a wonderful recipe for Cherry Preserves with Honey and Rosemary and wouldn’t you know it, cherries were all over the place at last weeks farmers’ market. Problem solved!
One issue, there were no cherries this week at the farmers’ market BUT there were blueberries all over the place, so I bought 4 pints and fired up Google for a honey based preserve. I usually stop by Whole Foods on the way back from the farmers’ market to pick up a few things I can’t get there. AND they had beautiful organic cherries on sale, so I bought a big bag. Along with a 24oz bottle of organic raw honey.
So based on a couple of recipes here’s what I came up with:
I wanted to do a sweet and a (more) savory batch so I weighed the blueberries and I had 80 ounces, so I split it in half to two 40 ounce portions.
And after pitting the cherries with my new OXO Good Grips Cherry Pitter I had about 40 ounces of cherries. so 1/3 cherries to 2/3 blueberries, sounds like it was meant to be.
Cherry and Blueberry Preserves, Sweet and Savory
Ingredients
40 Ounces Blueberries
20 Ounces Cherries (stemmed and pitted)
12 Ounces Raw Organic Honey
1/2 Teaspoon Salt
1 1/2 Tablespoon Lemon Juice
For Savory Version add
1/2 Teaspoon salt
2 Sprigs Rosemary
Instructions
Wash and destem the blueberries.
Wash destem, pit and quarter the cherries.
Place everything in a large non-reactive pot and mix well.
Cook on medium heat until the mixture starts to simmer, then reduce heat to low and let just barely simmer for 40 minutes, covered.
Remove the pan from the heat. Funnel preserves into prepared jars, leaving 1/2 inch headspace. Apply lids and rings and process in a boiling water bath canner for 15 minutes.
When time is up, remove canner from heat and set the lid aside. Let the jars cool gradually in the pot for an additional 10 minutes (this is to prevent any liquid loss).
Remove the jars from the canner and set them on a folded kitchen towel to continue to cool.
When jars are cool enough to handle (I let them sit overnight), remove rings and test seals. Rinse the jars to remove any sticky residue.
Sealed jars will keep on the shelf for up to a year. Any unsealed jars should be refrigerated and used promptly.
Adapted from Food in Jars