One Last Bowl of Cherries

2.5 QT Crockpot

The squirrels tried to beat us but we prevailed!  We picked one more big bowl of cherries.  Considering it's over 80 degrees outside, I didn't feel much like turning on the oven which prompted an intense internet search for a crockpot recipe.

Sounds easy, right?  Wrong!  Nearly every recipe I came across called for cherry pie filling.  Can you say yuck?  I'm not really a "pie filling from a can, filled with preservatives, excessive sugar and fillers" kind of girl - can anyone say cherry slime?!

I'm not kidding when I tell you it took some real digging to find a recipe where I could use FRESH CHERRIES!  Luckily, I came across The Crockpot Gourmet.  I did not know this Blog but after some browsing around, I bookmarked it and found them on Facebook.


The recipe is simple...

• 16 oz frozen sliced peaches
• 12 oz frozen sweet cherries (pitted)

• For the filling:
• ¼ cup greek yogurt
• ½ cup all purpose flour
• ¼ cup sugar
• 3 tablespoons milk
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice

• For the topping:
• 6 tablespoons cold butter
• ½ cup wheat flour (or regular flour is fine too, I just like the extra texture of the wheat flour)
• ¼ cup brown sugar
• ¼ cup sugar
• ½ teaspoon cinnamon

Instructions

1. In a small bowl whisk together the filling ingredients until well combined
2. Add peaches and cherries and toss to coat
3. Spray crock with nonstick spray and pour filling into crock
4. Using a sharp knife cut up the butter into tiny pieces trying not to touch with your hands
5. Then using a large fork add in remaining topping ingredients and use fork to cut it all in to form a crumble topping (or if you have a pastry cutter then you can just to this all at once)
6. When the butter is pretty well broken up and combined (don't worry if it's not perfect) then sprinkle evenly over the top of the filling in crock
7. Cover and cook on high for 2-4 hours

Notes

I used a 3.5 quart oval crock

The only changes I made were (1) I used our fresh Cherries and a bag of Frozen Mango and (2) I didn't make the topping but only because I just made Strawberry Pie and Cherry Pie. My plan for this is as an ice cream topper.

Cherries From Our Yard

We moved here just about 3 years ago and found the property to have so many features we love including multiple fruit trees!  We have 2 Apple, 2 Cherry and 2 Peach.  The house had been vacant for about a year so the animals had the run of the place, literally! Our first two summers didn't yield really anything since the squirrels, birds and bears got it all first.

Now on our third summer, we are fully ingrained and the animals have subsided a bit (there's no controlling the bears!) AND we've been able to pick two full bowls of ripe, delicious cherries!

Now I just needed to figure out what to make with them!  Remember, I'm also in the midst of two full baskets of Strawberries!

Fortunately I found a great recipe in my favorite cookbook, Simply in Season.  This is my go-to book, even before the internet, for easy to prepare, healthy ingredient recipes.  My next hurtle was pitting all those cherries!  My research paid off, I found a simple, free, way to do it easily.  Simply take a hard, plastic straw, push it through and out pops the pit!  Honestly, I had this done in about 30 minutes.



I even had enough cherries left over to make and freeze a filling batch.  Following the recipe below, I chose to cook the fruits.

1 1/2 Cups each of four fruits: raspberries, blueberries, blackberries, marionberries, boysenberries, huckleberries, saskatoons, mulberries, strawberies, sour cherries, peaches, apples

Mix together and pour into a 10-inch deep dish pie pan. Alternatively, the fruits can be cooked with 1/4 cup water, 1/4-1/2 cup sugar (depending on the sweetnesss of the fruit) and 2 TB cornstarch to thicken before baking.

3/4 cup flour3/4 cup rolled oats3 TB butter2 TB oil34/ cup brown sugar1/3 cup nuts , chopped; optional

Mix until crumbly. Evenly sprinkle topping over fruit.
Bake in preheated oven at 375F until fruit bubbles and topis golden brown, about 30 minutes; may take longer if using frozen fruit.

I had cherries and peaches on hand for this recipe.
For the additional batch of filling I froze for later, I used
the remaining cherries and frozen blueberries.

Enjoy!

What's cuter than a puppy and
a bowl of cherries?
Well nothing, of course!