More FMD 2012 Fruit Pics

I've already posted a few pics of the fruit we're using for jam (link).  Well, as is often the case, I should have ended that post with "... but wait - there's more!"

Those are yellow cherries.  No, not Rainiers, which always have some blush on them but these are straight-up yellow.  I've seen them referred to as "Stone Harvest Gold" cherries, but who knows.  They're a nice balance between tart and sweet and they made GREAT jam.  I hope we find them again next year.

These are, of course, blueberries.  See how some of them have stems?  Yeah, well before we jammed them, we picked through each berry to remove those stems.  There were over 20 pounds of berries, by the way.  Ponder that when you're enjoying this on toast, ok?  We didn't just slap these guys together - each berry gets inspected.  THAT's why I don't "sell" FMD jam.  I'd have to charge way too much.  (Note "sell" is in quote marks there.  This year, there will be a way to donate anything you'd like to contribute to a worthy, fully tax-deductible cause very close to my heart.  More on that later ...)

Raspberries.  I just love 'em - maybe even more than strawberries.  The ONLY drawback are the seeds.  So these are also inspected piece by piece to make sure that there are no leaves or cores and then I split the quantity in half and remove the seeds of one pile by pushing them through a sieve.  Or, at least, that's what I *used* to do.  This year, thanks to The Awesome Fiance, we used the Kitchen Aid mixer with a strainer attachment and geez - it did the task in just under an hour (and yes, that's a huge improvement).

Unfortunately there is no such shortcut for blackberries.  See how those raspberries above are hollow?  And see how these lovely blackberries aren't?  Well, while there's no reason to de-seed a blackberry, I do take the time to remove those cores.  It's just for looks, mostly.  If ya' don't remove the core, they can look like little white worms and ... well ... yeah, that's just not cool.  So we purchased close to 19 pounds of blackberries and once again, each one was inspected and cores were removed.  It's ok, really.  I don't mind.  I don't like creating something half-way great so if it means a few extra hours, so be it.

There will be more fruit pictures soon ... but that should cover things for now.