Cherries!

When a local orchard put an ad in the paper stating their cherries were ready, I asked the husband to call and see when we could go! They were selling pick-your-own sour cherries for 60 cents a pound and sweet cherries for 70 cents a pound. Compare that to 4.99 a pound at the store and you know you're getting a sweet deal! We went on Friday, which was perfect picking weather-- cool and cloudy with a few sprinkles here and there. By the time we were done, it was just past lunch time and getting hot and humid.

sour cherries

Middle; appropriately dressed for cherry picking

Youngest

Oldest, hard at work

I don't think we picked enough cherries... We recycled our ice cream buckets which held almost 5 pounds of cherries. We filled up 2 buckets each of sour cherries and sweet cherries.

For as long as I can remember, I've always loved maraschino cherries. I recently found a recipe to make my own and it's a fairly straightforward recipe. It takes a few days to make a batch and if this first batch of maraschino cherries is a success, I'll be making another trip to the orchard for more cherries! Think of all the goodies I can make with maraschino cherries:: ice cream, chocolate covered cherries, cherry quick breads.... yum!

I've made 2 batches of cherry jam, a first for me. I have a batch of maraschino cherries about ready to go in the canner and I'll be making more cherry pies.

I combined sweet cherries with rhubarb for a new twist on cherry pie and it was SO good! I'll be doing that again! Just use a regular cherry pie recipe and substitute 1 cup of cherries with rhubarb and add half a cup of sugar, then make as usual. yummy!

Here's the result of the cherry-rhubarb pie.

This one used the last of my canned cherries from last year. It has almond extract in it and used cornstarch instead of tapioca. Tasty and pretty to look at, but the cherry rhubarb was so much yummier!