What I’ve been up to: Cherries Edition

Hi friends.

Well, things have settled down (as much as they ever do) since my dear friend Becka left last week. But there’s always tons of stuff to do.

I’m still working on some long-term projects, but I thought I’d share a little bit of what I’ve been doing.

Last year I tried canning for the first time and immediately fell in love. I canned like crazy, much to Little Man’s dismay. Thankfully, this year he doesn’t seem to mind, and mostly wants to help out.

Anyway. I made strawberry freezer jam once this summer, but other than that I hadn’t done much.

I thought I’d lost my chance for canning things cherry-related when I failed to buy cherries when they were cheap at my local supermarket.

Bread & Butter Pickles

Well, as you may have noticed, I never got to my last-minute Halloween craft. We bought a car instead. Hooray. But that meant we got home late and missed most of the trick-or-treaters. Which means we have loads of leftover candy.

Which means I will have gained 10 extra pounds by the end of the week.

Anyway.

People generally come down on one side or the other when it comes to pickles: dill or sweet.

I generally like both types, but my all-time favorite kind of pickle is the bread & butter pickle. I have no idea why they’re called that, but they’re delicious so I don’t ask questions.

Bread & butter pickles are on the sweet side of the debate, but they’re different from regular sweet pickles. I think they have much more dimension of flavor. They’re filled with onions and garlic and mustard seed and turmeric and celery seed. So when I came across my grandma’s recipe for them, I couldn’t think of a better way to use my cucumber crop.