Cherries are lusciously red, but they also stain devilishly if they explode anywhere but in your mouth.
Posts with tag cherries
Cherry Crush Lemonade
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| Photo: The Skinny Chef |
Blending in cherries makes your lemonade naturally flavorful, pretty and pink. I just bought a huge bag of the Bing variety, recalling the scene from 'The Witches of Eastwick' wherein Cher and friends are gobbling down fresh cherries while Jack Nicholson -- playing the Devil -- has to spit out the pits.
I don't mind them so much; they come out easily with a paring knife or an inexpensive cherry pitter.
Get Jennifer's Cherry Crush Lemonade recipe and learn about cherries' health benefits after the jump.
Divine Delights From YumSugar
Each Thursday, we round up a selection of scrumptious links from our friends over at YumSugar. Here's what they've got cooking this week:
Spice things up the Tunisian way with a harissa made with garlic and chili paste.
Starbucks takes its first steps towards being healthier and greener with a new menu and more eco-friendly water faucets.
Impatience Inspected: How long will you wait for a table?
Cherries are in season in parts of the country, which means it's time for cherry-flavored salad, sauces, mojitos, margaritas, clafouti and ice cream sandwiches.
Shrimp and cocktail sauce gets a new twist with a mixture of avocado, corn and mango.
Seven teas to keep you ice-cold all summer long.
Be still, our sugar-loving hearts -- a butterscotch pudding recipe that takes less than 20 minutes to make.
DIY Kirsch - Tip of the Day
What is this thing called kirsch? And what do you do when it pops up in a recipe?
A sour cherry cocktail
Over the past few summers, cherry-based cocktails have become something of a signature for me, to the point whereupon being proposed to in mid-July a few years back, I immediately began pulping and freezing cherries for use in our wedding cocktails the following October. Fresh cherries have a cruelly short season, and I do my best to make the most of every phase from sour to Rainier to Bing. Each has a distinct level of sweetness and depth of flavor and is complemented by different suites of ingredients. Rich, dark Bings stand up to wood smoking and full-bodied lemon and limeades, but tender, young sour cherries seem a natural fit for a subtly refreshing sweet iced tea. Oh - and booze.
Recipe follows after the jump.
U-pick, I pick, we all pick
One of the things that says summer to me, more than hot weather, flip flops and the guys with coolers selling water bottles at stoplights and freeway exits is the ability to go fruit picking. I can't remember a single summer since I was 9 years old when I didn't find myself in a field of blueberry bushes, or carefully inserting myself further and further into a thorny blackberry bramble looking for the big, sweet berries.
The first few years I lived on the east coast, I planned a trip back to Portland that always happened to fall neatly during blueberry season (my mother's birthday coincides with ripe Pacific Northwest blueberries). Then last summer I headed to visit my parents in May and realized that if I didn't take matters into my own hands, I would miss out on picking. I started doing some research and found two farms that I absolutely love. This weekend, I'll be heading out to Mood's Farm Market near Mullica Hill, NJ to pick sweet cherries and early blueberries. I'm also planning a trip to Linvilla Orchards for raspberries in the very near future.
One of the things that helped me narrow down my u-pick choices was a guide that Metro Kids magazine (a Delaware Valley publication) put together last summer. They broke it down by state and so have a South Jersey guide, a Pennsylvania guide and a Delaware guide. When I'm in Portland, we always head out to Sauvie Island for all our u-pick needs.
I don't have much in the way of u-pick resources for the rest of the country, so I'm going to ask the rest of you to fill in the blanks. Where do you u-pick?
Tip of the Day: A few fun ice cube ideas
Whether it's for iced coffee or a party, here are some fun things you can do with ice cubes.
Happy National Cherry Popover Day!
Believe it or not, there are actually greeting cards to celebrate this day. Amazing.
It's National Cherry Popover Day, the day when we all eat blueberry muffins. Oh, just kidding. But I'm actually having trouble finding a recipe for cherry popovers, even on the internets (I can't even find a picture of one). I've found several for popovers in general, but none for cherry.
Do you have a cherry popover recipe you can share with us, or maybe a fruit-filled popover recipe where we could substitute cherry? Let us know in the comments.
What I did with my cherry glut, part 2: Chocolate Pancakes with Cherry Sauce
Well, I told you about the cherry smoothie I made from the summer cherries I put into the freezer for safe-keeping. A lot of good those will be to me in the fall since I subsequently used them all for a liquid breakfast every morning thereafter until they were.
What I didn't tell you is what I did with the cherries I kept fresh on the counter. You, my Slashfood faithful friends, suggested clafouti to spare my fingers the chore of pitting cherries, as well as a multitude of recommendations for what I should do with the result of my gluttonous run at the market. I took the advice of a few and made...
...cherry sauce.
Continue reading What I did with my cherry glut, part 2: Chocolate Pancakes with Cherry Sauce
What I did with my cherry glut: Cherry smoothies
Remember when I asked all you, my favorite Slashfoodies, for some suggestions for what to do with a glut of cherries back in July? There were some great suggestions in the comments, with quite a few cheers for clafouti (because I bemoaned having to pit them), cherries jubilee, and among a bunch of other ideas.
Well, I took some of your ideas over the last month and made some stuff, which I'll be sharing with you this week. First up, it's a cherry smoothie, which I realize is pretty boring, but it had to be done because 1) life for the last month required speed eating which often translates into liquid lunch, and 2) with that many cherries, I had to put at least half of them in the freezer. Of course, I pitted the entire basket first (using a knife - very painstaking), spread them onto a tray, then placed them into the freezer. The next morning, I was so excited about having frozen cherries, I blended them into a smoothie so I could enjoy them right away.
There's no real recipe here, but I'll let you know what I put into mine because I felt like a million bucks after drinking it. Blend together: ½ c. nonfat yogurt, 1 c. frozen cherries (pitted, duh), and enough pomegranate juice to make it the consistency you want (I used about ½ cup). I don't add any sugar, though a friend suggested a drizzle of honey. Pour into a tall glass, drink up, and you'll feel like a superhero.
Stay tuned for slightly more exciting things I did with the cherries!
Slashfood Ate (8): Cherry Clafoutis, because I asked
Several days ago, I asked you, my beloved Slashfood readers, for help on what to do with about a bazillion cherries I had picked up. One of the overwhelming responses was for a cherry clafouti - the French dessert-t thing that's made with a pancake batter and fruit. I am not yet telling you what I am doing with the cherries -- it may or may not be a cherry clafouti -- but until I post that, here are eight cherry clafoutis from around the food web for your viewing, reading, and perhaps eating, pleasure:
- Noshtalgia is cheery about cherries
- Amy does Julia Child's recipe
- 28Cooks uses sour cherries
- You might get a muffin top if you eat the clafouti from MuffinTop
- Mahanandi is the one in the picture
- Clafouti from Becks N Posh is not for the Frenchman
- Lucullian Delights adds a little spice
- Smitten Kitchen's clafouti is a cliche come true
Happy National Hot Fudge Sundae Day!
Many of the Ice Cream holidays seem to be in July: National Ice Cream Day, National Ice Cream Soda Day, National Vanilla Ice Cream Day, even Creative Ice Cream Flavor Day. Today it's Hot Fudge Sundae Day.
Of course, there are many different definitions of a hot fudge sundae, and many ways to make them, depending on what you like. Here's one for an Italian Hot Fudge Sundae, which uses espresso and Amaretto. Here's a Hot Fudge Sundae Cake you can make, while CDKitchen has some Hot Fudge Sundae Brownies.
For a real basic recipe, check out eHow's step by step guide. But I would just go crazy and put together the ice cream and toppings you like. Nicole had a nice list of sundaes a while back and most of them including hot fudge.
What should I do with a gazillion cherries?
My Slashfoodie friends, I am at a loss.
I have about a bazillion (yeah, so I exaggerated when I said "gazillion") cherries sitting on my countertop, and I have no idea what to do with them besides wash them and just eat them straight out of the bowl. I have used dried cherries in baking and during the autumn, and lately, I have been throwing frozen cherries into my morning smoothies. However, I have never used fresh cherries in cooking.
The reason I have yet to cook with fresh cherries, I think, is that the idea of standing in my kitchen squirting cherry red juice all over my kitchen floor and my clothes, possibly knicking my fingers on a fruit knife, and basically staining my fingers a lovely shade of red for days to come -- pitting fresh cherries -- does not appeal to me. If I'm going to go to all that effort to take out the stones, I'd just as soon pop that cherry into my mouth standing right there.
So Slashfoodies, I am asking for your help. Share with me, your favorite recipe using fresh cherries that will most definitely make my time and sanity pitting cherries in the kitchen worthwhile, will you? Breakfast, lunch, dinner, dessert -- anything!
Fast meals, fresh cherries, and healthy cocktails? NY Times Dining in 60 seconds
To me, summer is not complete without tons of freshly picked cherries. Now don't get me wrong, I don't live anywhere near where I can actually pick them myself, but luckily there always seems to be a large number of cherry trucks lurking around the parking lots of my local malls which I visit often, if not obsessively. This week, the New York Times Dining Section covers a couple of different ways to make the most of these tantalizing bites, whether you are using the fresh and sweet kind, or the sour variety. Find out how to make your own Maraschinos (sooo much better than the store-bought ones) or whip up a batch of Spiced Brandied Cherries. News flash: It is hot outside. Really, who wants to cook for an hour or more? If you are crunched for time this summer but still want to eat tasty, home-cooked food, The Minimalist Mark Bittman lists 101 (yes, 101) fast meal ideas in this column very appropriately titled Summer Express.
Sweet or savory? Everyone seems to have a preference, but it doesn't necessarily have to be one or the other as Frank Bruni reveals after visiting P*ong, a New York restaurant where you will find delectable sweet treats rubbing elbows as though they belong on the same plate with some of your favorite savory flavors.
Still looking for more recipes? Choose from Yogurt Rice (Thayir Choru), or Torchio Pasta served with Oyster Mushrooms, Braised Chicken and San Marzano Tomatoes.
Finally, saddle up to the side of the (health)bar and order an organic cocktail. Mixologists everywhere are jumping on the antioxidant/vitamin-rich bandwagon and are incorporating healthful ingredients into their various libations. Thought drinks were expensive before? I can only imagine how much these will set you back.
Food Porn: Sam Breach's Cherry Pavlova
Sam Breach writes on her food blog, Becks n Posh, and while I love reading her charming stories about her adventures in and around San Francisco, what always gets me about her blog is her photography. How gorgeous is this photo?
The Pavlova has a tan, yes, and while purists might argue that it should be white, Sam made these with brown sugar, topped them with whipped cream, the first cherries of the late spring season, and caramelized almonds. I really do love the light brown color of the pavlova, making it so much softer looking with the cream and cherries!
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