Cherry Palooza Part 2

Part 2: Cherry BBQ sauce and Jam

Here is some of the leftovers of my hard labor!  This was our favorite cherry recipe.  First, let me say my husband makes the BEST barbecue sauce.  He also makes awesome ribs, chicken and basically you can slather the sauce on anything and I will eat it.  I came up with the idea of spending the afternoon playing Ryan's su-chef, while he transformed his BBQ sauce into Cherry BBQ sauce:)

In a large saucepan, saute onions and garlic with Krazy Janes in the butter and Canola oil until tender.  While they cook I heated another sauce pan med/low and and heated up the cherries, while I mashed them with a potato masher.

Stir in the cherries and remaining ingredients.  Cook uncovered, over med/low for 20-30 minutes until cherries are tender and sauce is thickened, stir often.  We did not want a chunky sauce so we used a slotted spoon to remove large chucks, pureed them and added them back to the sauce....beware this is messy:)

We of course then tried our sauce!  First at lunch on sammies:)

It was so good we made ribs for dinner....

I then went out and bought all the stuff to can all the leftover BBQ sauce to give to family and friends.

Once you figure out the whole canning process and don't mind your kitchen temperature rising to 90 degrees...its really fun and easy!

Last thing I made was Jam.  I made it really easy....
1. Wash and pit several cups of cherries.
2. Dump them into a pan over med heat.
3.  Use your potato masher and mash like before with the BBQ sauce.  I added juice of one lemon and about 1/4 cup water to the pan.
4.  After about 10 minutes I added 1/2 cup sugar and a few sqirts of agave nectar.
5.  Stir until it is as think as jam should be:)
6.  Can the jam and make cute lables!

And at last I was ready to create little gifts for some family and friends with all our creations!

Hope they all enjoyed the cherry goodies!!!