We have two cherry trees in our garden, one small and one large and both this year have been packed with fruit. One of my favorite things is cherry pie (also any pie) and my wife makes a pretty good one that is gluten-free, so she and my daughter can eat it too. I think I will see if she is up for giving the recipe, as it is easy, fast and can go with pretty much any fruit. She normally does blueberry, raspberry, apple or rhubarb - with the last three also making an appearance in our garden. The rhubarb season is over, but we have packed some into the freezer for pies, and the raspberry and apple season will soon arrive and we will do the same.
Today though, we plucked some of the cherries (there are heaps still on the tree) and I pitted about a zillion in preparation to freeze them in zip-lock bags with a sprinkling of sugar, which keeps their flavor and color once frozen. We have a chest freezer in the basement that we bought from a friend, which has been awesome for keeping all the goodness our garden delivers, as well as makes it easier to prep food for our daughter in advance, and still have some space for ice cream.
It is messy work pitting cherries and last year I did it in the kitchen, but since we currently have no kitchen while the floor is drying, I did it outside in the shade of the cherry tree, which is one of my favorite places to sit in the garden.
This was all manual work and is essentially slicing through the cherry with a knife and pushing the pit out with fingers. It took about two hours to get through about two thirds of what we picked and we will keep the rest whole and some just to eat fresh also. You can freeze cherries with the pit, but it is much easier to do them all at once and freeze them in separate bags, rather than have to thaw and pit them every time, you want to use them.
It is bloody work, but since they are bloody delicious, I don't mind doing the prep, especially since I won't have to make the pies, but will be a beneficiary of my wife's work. It is really nice that when we have people visit us, we are able to offer them something from our own garden, though a lot of Finns seem to not be too keen on cherry pie for some reason. I think it is cultural and also that cherry trees are apparently rare, so people are used to the more common fruits. We made a range of pies last year for my daughter's birthday and hardly anyone tried the cherry. I didn't mind - more for me.
Activities like this are time consuming yet are some of the best parts of owning a house and having a garden, as there really is a sense of independence and ownership involved. So many people these days do nothing for themselves in regards to the food they consume and I think that it is because of this disconnection that we are losing the sense of what "good food" is, as healthy seems to be advertised from a packet, as if fresh and simple is not good enough.
Though, eating a lot of cherry pies isn't exactly the food of champions...
Taraz
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