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!