Saturday, July 12, 2014

Patience

I was just remarking to a writer friend the other day that IMHO the hardest thing to learn about writing and the process is patience and the other hardest thing is faith in oneself.  I have no magic answers, but I’m having a little lesson in patience today, with a small cooking project:  Bourbon Candied Cherries.

Steve has become interested in baking, but I was able to lure him into helping me make this, since these cherries should be lovely in drinks.  The problem is that we have to let them marinate for THREE DAYS when they look so delicious RIGHT NOW. 

Patience!

Here’s the recipe, and I’ll let you know on Wednesday how they were…we will be giving them a run on Tuesday night as we celebrate our wedding anniversary!  (Talk about another thing that requires patience…but that’s a different story!)

Bourbon Candied Cherries
From Cooking Light magazine, July 2012

I’ll give the full recipe, but we halved it:

 1 ½ lbs fresh Bing cherries with stems
1 c sugar
1/3 c fresh lime juice
¼ c water
1 c bourbon or rye whiskey (we took this chance to use up several “dregs” from a variety of bottles)

Place the cherries in a medium glass bowl or large jar.  Combine sugar, juice, and ¼ cup water in a small saucepan; bring to a boil.  Reduce heat to medium; cook for 5 minutes, stirring to dissolve sugar.  Add 1 cup bourbon; bring just to a boil.  Pour the hot bourbon mixture over the cherries.  Cool completely.  Cover and refrigerate at least three days before serving.

Note: They will keep in the refrigerator for up to two weeks.

Our plan is to use them in Manhattans and to serve them alongside the incredible and perfect pound cake I love to make (recipe here).




Work-in-Progress

DC-area author Leslie Pietrzyk explores the creative process and all things literary.