Tuesday, June 30, 2009

A Weekend Full of Cherries!

How long does it take to pit 25 lbs of cherries?
Way longer than I thought it would!
Luckily I had some great helpers!

Making cherry juice.

The winning recipe from this past weekend, Jason says this is the best one since the PS (post-sugar) era began:

Pear and Cherry Cobbler

2 lbs pears, peeled and sliced

2 cups pitted cherries

3 TBSP lemon juice

1/2 cup honey

2 TBSP cornstarch mixed with 2 TBSP water

2 TBSP butter

1 recipe whole wheat and honey topping (see below)

Preheat oven to 400 place the pears in a shallow 3 qt baking dish. Stir in the lemon juice, honey, and cornstarch mixture. Dot with pieces of the butter. Prepare topping and drop by spoonfuls onto fruit mixture, leaving space in between– it will spread a bit and some gaps are desirable to see the fruit peeking through. Bake for 30 to 35 minues or until topping is well browned. Serve warm or cool, with vanilla ice cream or milk, morning or night.

Topping:

1 1/4 cups oats

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp ground nutmeg

1/2 cup cold butter

1/2 cup milk

1/4 cup honey

In a bowl, stir together whole wheat flour, baking powder, salt, ground cinnamon, and nutmeg. With a pastry blender, cut in cold butter or margarine until well blended. Stir together milk and honey; add to bowl, stirring until combined. Recipe adapted from here.

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8 comments:

Rose said...

Yum, sounds good! I've had this habit lately of trying to figure out what I can 'sneak' into recipes!

You could also try substituting fresh squeezed unsweetened apple juice for the water, it might take a little more effort to get the cornstarch to blend though.

Another addition you can do is in the topping. Ground walnuts or ground almonds. Just take walnut pieces or blanched and slivered almonds and pulse them in a food processor or blender. Mix them up with your topping, I doubt anyone will notice!

Rose said...

Oh, and using a 1/2 cup of hemp milk in place of cow milk packs a good punch of protein, omega-3s and omega-6s!

I think I want to try that cherry recipe. It sounds good! :)

Rose said...

Whoops, is there pears or peaches in there?

Christina said...

I made it with pears, but the original recipe was for peaches. Thanks for the suggestions!

Sarah said...

I hope you at least had a cherry pitter! We have 14 lbs of cherries coming in the berry order, so I'll have to remember this recipe.

Honey said...

Are you bringing some with you??

Rose said...

Ah, so you can do either or? I'll remember that! It sounds yummy!

Topsy said...

Man that brings back memories. We had a pie cherry tree growing up - along with strawberry beds, raspberry beds, blackberry beds, vine grapes, 1/4 acre garden, pear-peach-plum-apple trees. AH! It was a busy landscape. But those darned pie cherries would take years off of our lives, pitting them FOREVER!!! I know your pain girl. But somehow all is forgotten when the perfect recipe produces perfect results!