My garden is being overrun with ground cherries. I'm not having much luck finding recipes that will use them up. Any ideas?

-- Mary S. (1deal@quik.com), July 23, 2001

Answers

My mother used to make jam/preserves from ground cherries. If you do a search, you will find some recipes. Good luck.

-- Trisha-MN (tank@linkup.net), July 23, 2001.

What is a 'ground cherry'?

-- paul (primrose@centex.net), July 23, 2001.

I may be mistaken -- but aren't tomatillos and ground cherries the same thing??? I remember my grandmother growing what she called groundcherries (I was 5 years old) and they looked an awful lot like the tomatillos I grow now -- yellow blooms, papery husk with green fruit inside on small bushy plant. If so, go to epicurious.com and look up recipes for tomatillos.

-- Michael Nuckols (nuckolsm@wildak.net), July 23, 2001.

Mom and Grandma used to make some really good ground cherry preserves. Sorry I dont have the recipie. Not bad eaten fresh if you wait until they are completely ripe (very sweet when ripe). You can tell they are completely ripe when the paper husked berry falls to the ground. Tomatillos are larger and less sweet or so I believe. I've never grown any, but dont they use them in chutney and mexican dishes? Think ground cherries are also called Cape Gooseberries. Seems like there is yet another name but I cant remember.

-- HermitJohn (hermit@hilltop_homestead.zzn.com), July 23, 2001.

Go to www.google.com, do a search on "recipes for cape gooseberries", you'll get heaps of information, including differences between tomatilloes, ground cherries and cape gooseberries (small but real - they're not the same, but are closely related, apparently).

-- Don Armstrong (darmst@yahoo.com.au), July 25, 2001.

I just made some Ground Cherry Preserves using a receipe my Mom found in a Ball Cookbook that must have been printed in the 40's.

2 quarts ground cherries 3 cups water 6 cups sugar 2 lemons

Husk, and wash ground cherries, slice.

Boil water, sugar, juice & pulp of lemons 5 min. Cool. Add G cherries & boil till clear. Pour into hot jars, seal at once.

(one Extension Specialist recommends boiling in water bath x 5 min to prevent mold growth)

-- JE B leau (jeblu@go.com), September 08, 2001.