Pears preserved in lemon juice with honey - Pere conservate in succo di limone con miele - Kruške konzervirane u limunovom soku s modem

If you have a foodblog, you know how hard it is to resist from buying some...plenty of fresh and ripe seasonal fruits. Fruits are so inspiring and versatile. I've discovered that I not only like fresh fruits, but I adore all kind of preserves and deserts made of fruits and flavoured with different spices. Few weeks ago I made this preserved pears and I've added cloves into the syrup because I thougt that the intense flavour of cloves will give some more verve to the mild pear taste and because I needed  to make my "pear jar" more photogenic. But the real satisfaction and surprise arrived what I've opened the jar.

Have you ever smelt the scent of wintersweet Chimonanthus flowers? It's exactly the one I've felt in that precise instant. I couldn't imagine I would produce the same scent in the jar, moreover it is the edible one!

So, now I have my joung wintersweet Chimonanthus tree flourishing on the terrace and its perfume in a jar. And I didn't have to cut any of tree branches to enjoy its intense scent. Isn't it beautiful?

I love its pale yellow, almost transparent flowers with the bordeaux heart.

You can see first thiny flower buds already in August, hidden between the leaf and the branch. It continue growing and swelling all autumn long and the very first flowers open when the cold frost arrives. This is the extraordinary beauty of the nature.

Sour black cherries in syrup – Amarene sciroppate – Višnje u sirupu

I adore sour taste of fruits while not too ripe. For the same reason I prefer jam made of sour black cherries. Sour black cherries always have slightly sour taste (they have it in the name too!), they are not too sweet, but their flavour is absolutely perfect. I find the best ripe fruits at the end of June in the near village at my friend’s orchard. I want them to be fresh and not “stressed” because of long traveling to reach our city market. And then the “big” work can begin. It takes some time to pit all these tiny fruits, if you do it manually…and how do I do it? Manually, of course, but in this way my preserves are even more tasty!
Usually I bring my “preserves for winter” from Croatia, homemade by my mother, but in last years I started to prepare them by my own too, following the family recipes and traditions. It makes me so satisfied and proud, because these (my!) preserves are so good! And my parents are so curious to taste some of my “creations”. I like to experiment new combinations and flavours and they are so fascinated by this. So now, when I go back home, I usually bring with me some preserves too. Isn’t it extraordinary? In August, when I get back home, I’m sure I will find jars full of sour black cherries taking sun immersed in liquefied sugar and grappa waiting to become liquor.
This year I wanted to try something different then the ordinary jam (of course the jam was prepared too)!I also red Angela’s cookbook (“Racconti di Cucina” written by Angela Frenda) and I’ve found a similar recipe that inspired me and made me think about the sour black cherry liquor my mother prepare each summer. But I wanted to prepare something with no alcohol. So I have done some research in the web, I’ve found so many different recipes and at the end I have decided to combine all these new knowledge and prepared my sour black cherries in syrup!
.....and now I have enough cherry stones to make homemade cherry stone boule. I don't like to waste, so I try to use almost everything.....