Bing Cherry Jam

Well, we still had a lot of cherries after we made the ice cream, so I figured I'd make cherry jam. I found a pretty simple recipe online that worked well, the only problem was that I wasn't sure when the jam was done, because it was my first time doing it alone. But it seemed to work just fine, and now we have yummy cherry jam to enjoy for awhile!

4 c. pitted fresh bing cherries
2 c. sugar
2 Tbl. lemon juice
1 pinch salt
3 Tbl. dry pectin

1. Add the cherries, lemon juice, sugar, salt to slow cooker; stir gently and let stand for 15 minutes or until sugar is mostly dissolved.
2. Sprinkle with pectin.
3. Cover and cook on LOW for 2 1/2, stirring 2 - 3 times while cooking.
4. Remove the lid, turn the cooker to HIGH and cook 2 - 3 hours more, until jam reached desired consistency (make sure to check on it every once in awhile, because I had a huge mess to clean up--but I had left the lid on it)
5. Ladle the jam into clean spring-top glass jars, or screw tops with new lids (I bought some plastic freezer jars from Ball that worked just fine), let stand to cool.
6. Store, covered in the fridge for up to 2 months, or freeze.

This recipe's supposed to yield 5 cups. I doubled the recipe and filled 4 16 oz. plastic jars. Just sayin'.

work station

173 cherries = 1 hour to pit

all ready after hours of cooking

on homemade bread