Oh Cherry, Our Love, Holds On, Holds On!

If any of you automatically get this title, then you deserve a cherry pie, baked by moi!

Back in the mid 80’s every other song on the radio was by Journey. And Steve Perry’s voice is never better than when he sings ‘Oh Sherrie’! I always turned the radio up nice and loud when it started, and I sang along to every word.

But the sentiments that he feels towards Sherrie, is exactly how I feel about Cherries!! Ever since I was a little girl, I got so excited when cherry season arrived. We had cherry trees in the backyard, and I was always up in them, eating the ripe cherries, always ignoring my mother’s “Get down before you get a stomach ache”. I always got a stomach ache from eating too many, but that never stopped me from climbing those trees year after year.

I always loved when a basket of cherries included those two cherries, attached at the tops of their stems. Remember wearing them as earrings? Or was it just me? Oh well…

In those days, once the season was gone, so were the cherries. There weren’t yet the frozen bags of cherries along with other fruit, available at the grocery stores, making year round cherries a reason to cry out for joy. These days there is usually a bag of sweet frozen cherries in the freezer, even if it is just for smoothies. Cherries and chocolate make the best breakfast smoothies (of course those are the flavours that stand out, the good for you ingredients are there hiding in the background!)

Sure, working with cherries, the most charming of the stone fruits in my humble opinion, means scarlet stained fingers as you pit or slice them up, usually creating a crime scene in the process. Especially if using a pitter- oh my, cherry juice everywhere! But so worth it. The hard part is not eating all the little orbs before you have enough for your recipe. In fact, if you are purchasing cherries to bake with, go ahead and just buy extra. Snacking is taken care of this way!

I thought I’d collect the few Cherry recipes that I’ve already posted on my little blog. It’s only been two and a half years, but I have had fun creating and sharing some great ways to eat and cook or bake with cherries. Just click on a name and start exploring. Let me know if you have a favourite from the collection below. Or if there is anything you’d like to see that I haven’t shared yet. And just because I’m writing this today, doesn’t mean that my reservoir of cherry ideas is now empty. No way! I have more recipes coming. But at least this is a start…

Love Jen

Cherry Rhubarb Pie with Urfa Biber and Allspice