We have WAY too many tart cherries and WAY too many kitchen gadgets; therefore, I refuse to buy a cherry pitter. I have so many kitchen gadgets that when I got new dining room furniture a few months ago, I specifically bought pieces that have a lot of hidden storage (like 40″x20″ worth per piece). They’re almost full.
I bought 8 quarts of tart cherries from the farmers market, which equated to about 20 pounds.
This is less than half of the tart cherries I bought – Yikes!
That’s a lot of cherries to pit! I tried cutting the pits out, squeezing them out, etc. Not good. So after about a half hour of failed attempts I decided I needed to make my own gadget out of stuff I have lying around the house. This takes up hardly any space and works great!
What you need:
A ball point pen
Take your pen. Take of the cap. Get rid of the ball point and ink. Get rid of the plug like thing on the other side. Voila! A cherry pitter that takes up like ZERO space in your kitchen! I personally used my teeth to get the plug like thing out….. I know, don’t try that at home. I’m sure you can figure out a way you’re comfortable with.
Now time to pit some cherries, it’s easy… Hold a cherry between your fore finger and thumb, place the pitter over the area where the stem was and push the pitter through. Voila!
I did this tiny bunch. A friend came over the next day and did ALL of them. Big thanks to her! You know who you are :). I think I can handle doing about 2-3 quarts on my own before I’m dying of boredom. Having someone to chat with while doing it is a much better option!
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