I've had my chokecherry bush in our backyard for the past five years- a gift from the former owners of the home. Before today, I had never gathered the berries (mostly due to lack of interest! They taste terrible fresh of hand, and I'd never tried jam or syrup from them). This evening, I made one of the most intriguing tasting, on the tart-side jams.
Using the no-sugar needed pectin (another first since my gestational diabetes has made me more conscious of refined sugar), I boiled up a pot of chokecherry and rhubarb jam using splenda as a sweetener. Man alive! Delicious- I licked the remains off the spoon, the funnel, the counter. Kicking myself for all the wasted years of chokecherry.
So what happens to your chokecherries??
7 comments:
Rhubarb and chokecherry sounds like an interesting jam combination--both are readily available here. I made some chokecherry jelly this year (meh, but handy to have in the cupboard).
About 10 years ago I soaked a bunch of chokecherries in vodka in the fridge for four months and bottled a very purple drink.
My grandma makes the most amazing chokecherry jelly, but I've never heard of it anywhere else. The fruit is aptly named. I suppose you can make jelly or jam out of almost anything that is inedible in any other form. :)
And was this purple drink drinkable?!? Sounds like not a bad use of vodka!
Yes, the purple drink was drinkable. But more of a shooter than a liquor (kind of like a "flaming Moe" from the Simpsons).
Forgot to mention: I did put the berries through the food mill, which left me with a lot more flavour and less fibrous materials. Great for the tongue, bad for the bowels (those two body parts should probably not ever go in the same sentence...)
Did you separate out the puts before milling? Chokecherry pits are bad news:
http://museum.gov.ns.ca/poison/?section=species&id=109
My mom used to make a fantastic chokecherry syrup for pancakes! Very flavorful - though I do not know how much sugar she had to add.
Becky
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