by Brilynn of Jumbo Empanadas

Photo by Helen
of Tartlette

I confess, I have an ulterior motive for choosing to turn the spotlight on cherries for my recipe round up. Sure there are lots of summer fruit coming into season right now, but my heart belongs to cherries. You see, ever since I was born I have spent a part of every summer in my Grandparents cherry orchard. As soon as I was old enough to do more than sit in my crib and pop cherries in my mouth, (which I wouldn’t stop doing unless they were removed from my reach) I was put to work picking, sorting or selling cherries. Working in an orchard means getting up early to pick while it’s still cool and then spending the rest of the day sorting and selling the cherries you picked in the morning. Despite the hard work, I’ve always loved cherry season because it means family time.

The orchard belongs to my Grandparents and is run entirely by family and some very helpful friends. I have fond memories of picking cherries in the orchard on hot summer days, sitting on a ladder with a harness and basket, surrounded by clumps of enormous bing cherries and trying to spit the pits at my cousins on the ladders nearby. When it was time to come in for lunch someone would ring a giant schoolbell to signal us to the table. Everyone would grab a plate and some bread or a roll and fix themselves a sandwich from plates of coldcuts, cheese and veggies. I’d better stop now before I travel any further down memory lane, if you get me started I’ll go on for days. Anyways, all of this is to say that I have cherry juice in my blood I will never tire of this gorgeous fruit. As such I’m always looking for different ways to use cherries in cooking and baking although I must admit, I eat most of them straight off the tree just as they are, (or out of the freezer for a frozen treat!) So I’ve scoured the internet and found some delicious sounding cherry recipes that I can’t wait to try out in a couple weeks when it becomes cherry season in Ontario.

Photo by Elise
of Simply Recipes

How about we start with a refreshing cherry beverage and what could be better than a Cherry Mojito? The folks at Yum Sugar came up with this delicious twist on the classic mojito and I think it sounds amazing! I would probably stay true to the mojito and use rum in my version of it, but what can I say, I just prefer rum.

If you like your cherries in baked goods, there are lots of those to go around. Helen of Tartelette shows off some beautiful Cherry Orange Blossom Cakes and makes them extra cute by baking them in mini herb pots lined with parchment paper. You can always count on Helen to come up with the best recipes and have stunning photography to accompany them.

Moving right along from cakes to tarts we have a Macaroon Cherry Tart Recipe from Heidi of 101 Cookbooks. Heidi claims that despite how good it looks, this tart is also extremely simple to put together and not at all fussy. It has a press-in-pan crust and combines the flavour of cherries, coconut and brown sugar. I’m definitely lined up for a slice of this one.

Anyone who has read my blog recently knows that I’m currently obsessed with ice cream and various other frozen concoctions so when I saw that Elise of Simply Recipes had made a Cherry Ice Cream with Chocolate Chips I knew immediately it was going on my list of ice creams to make. You can never go wrong with the combo of chocolate and cherries and the colour of that ice cream is phenomenal!

Photo by Joe
of Culinary in the Country

If you’d like to try your cherries in a savoury dish, Joe from Culinary in the Country has got you covered with mouthwatering Grilled Tilapia with Cherry Salsa.
Joe did almost a week of cherry recipes and has some sweets as well, including a Black Forest Cherry Cheesecake. His site is definitely a good one to check out.

Should you be fortunate enough to receive a large quantity of cherries and aren’t sure what to do with them, I suggest David Lebovitz’s No Recipe Cherry Jam.
He doesn’t promise it won’t get messy, but does provide some guidelines on how to turn your cherries into fabulous jam. Cherry jam is a wonderful creation that you rarely see in stores so make it if you have the chance, I assure you it will be a hit!

If you can’t wait for cherry season and want to feast your eyes on some beauties, check out the amazing photography by Matt of MattBites. Although I should warn you, it will leave you craving cherries more than ever!

Now I don’t know about the rest of you, but my supply of cherries from the freezer has long since dried up and I can’t wait for the arrival of this season! Happy eating!

As always, you can find many more mouthwatering cherry recipes on the Foodieview Recipe Search Engine.

And to find out more about Brilynn and her Go Big or Go Home philosophy, check out her blog, Jumbo Empanadas.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 23rd, 2008 at 10:14 am and is filed under Recipe Roundup. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.