A Harder Test: Cherries

Over the past few week we traveled quite extensively, and I didn't want to go to all the trouble of bringing my homemade food along for our trip, so I purchased some Gerber stage two packages for Ella. Stage two foods are so much more interesting than the stage one, mostly because many are combos of different foods. One package I picked up was a cherry applesauce. Ella LOVED this combo, so when we got back, I decided I would make a cherry puree for her.

I read up on how to do the cherries on www.wholesomebabyfood.com, but things didn't quite work the way they were described on the website. First, I had to remove the pits from the cherries . . . according the website, I could depit the cherries by using the end of my vegetable peeler. So, I'm standing by the stove "removing the pit" from my cherries. Or, so I thought. (Did I mention that I'm pretty unfamiliar with cherries??) My husband walks by, and says, "You know you aren't taking the pit out, right?" I'm not?? What do you mean I'm not taking the pit out? My husband breaks open a cherry and shows me the pit. I'm most definitely not removing the pit with my vegetable peeler. I try to dig deeper with my vegetable peeler, but it really isn't working well. I decide I'll cut around the pit with a knife. This is really not working well either - sure, I'm removing the pit, but I'm also wasting a good bit of cherry in the process. My husband starts breaking the cherries open with his hands, which works, but is an incredibly messy process. I dig in again with the vegetable peeler, and I finally figure out I can get the pit out with the tip of my vegetable peeler, but this is also a very messy process. By the time I've depitted all of the cherries, my hands and clothes are stained purple (thankfully, I was wearing old clothes, and it washed off my hands easily).

Whew! I finally got the cherries depitted. That was A LOT of work . . . the most work of any food I've made Ella so far. Now I'm off to stew my cherries in a bit of water (which www.wholesomebabyfood.com suggested as a possible method) before I freeze them. After I stew them for a bit, I blend them up in my food processor, and they are SO liquidy. Apparently the cherries had enough juice in them, and I did not need to add water when I cooked them a bit. My mixture is so liquidy that I decided to reduce the mixture on the stove. After reducing for a while, it is much thicker, and much more appropriate for baby food. Finally, I move the puree into ice cubes to freeze. I was worried about the puree after everything that I had to do with it, but Ella loved it, so I guess that's all that matters!