A Traditional Farm Life
By Shasta Hamilton
Greetings from Enterprise, dear friends! As we examine our property in order to plan
future sites for an orchard, berry patch, and greenhouse, our current lush green
surroundings increase our anticipation of bountiful harvests to come.
Fueling the fire was a recent invitation to come pick a good
friend’s cherry trees. What a dream come true!
We loaded up the family and arrived in a backyard in Chapman to find two
trees absolutely loaded with the tart, red orbs. Visions of cherry pies danced in our heads as
eight eager amateur cherry pickers prepared to fill bowls and ice cream buckets
to the brim.
How did we know they were tart and juicy? To a person, our first cherry picked went in
immediately for a taste test. After warnings to the children of the dire
consequences of eating too much ripe fruit in one sitting, we turned to the
task at hand.
How do you even begin such a monumental task? In our naiveté, we began by delicately
“cherry picking” the best cherries, but it soon became obvious this method
would take way too long. (We were in
someone else’s backyard, after all.)
We then began attempting to reach up and grab clusters of
cherries all at once, but found we could not keep a hold on them and they ended
up rolling off hat brims onto the ground.
After clumsily picking for what seemed like an eternity, we combined our
small bowls and ice cream buckets to discover we only had enough to fill one
large stainless steel bowl.
Providentially, about this time the owner came out to check
on us and to casually mention there was someone else who was coming to pick
cherries as well.
Should we feign disappointment or shout, “Hallelujah!”? We chose the middle ground and said we would
be happy to leave some cherries for the next folks. (You could barely even tell we’d picked from
the trees.)
This morning the girls and I sat down at the kitchen table
and had a nice mother/daughter chat while pitting cherries. We tried several methods we had heard
about. The most creative was using the
tokens from our Sorry!™ board game to push out the pit. We also poked out pits with toothpicks, but
we found the best method to be using the curved end of our (clean)
hairpins. (A paper clip bent open would
have the same result, but wouldn’t be nearly as fun to tell about.)
The cherries had not held up well in their two days in the
fridge, and when all was said and done we had a grand total of only SIX CUPS
pitted cherries.
So much for that recipe for canning cherry pie filling
requiring 24 cups of fruit. Plan B was
quickly implemented, and the “Tart Cherry Lattice Pie” recipe was selected from
on old Taste of Home annual cookbook.
The recipe required 4 cups for one pie, so I prepared the
filling for one pie while my daughters used the remaining 2 cups to prepare a
similar recipe. When I poured the
filling into my pastry-lined 9” pan, I knew I was in trouble. It was mounded full and the juices were ready
to overflow the sides of the pan. I
plowed on ahead and carefully put on the lattice top, struggling to retain the
juices in the pie while building up the pastry rim “retaining wall” around the
edges as high as possible.
Expecting the worst, I carefully set the pie on a cookie sheet
before putting it in the oven. The
pastry dam broke as anticipated, and about one fourth of the outside edge of
the crust fell off the pie into the caramelized juices below, effectively
cementing my pie to the pan. Not a
pretty sight. (A quick review of the
recipe afterward revealed I should have drained off the accumulated juices
before making the filling.)
The girls made two small cherry tarts, which came out
beautifully. Later in the afternoon we
took the fruit of our labors to the restaurant for hubby to admire. After a quick glance at the lopsided lattice
pie, my husband made an astute observation: “Well, I guess it won’t win a
ribbon at the county fair.”
Well, dear friends, we all know you can’t judge a book by
its cover. Hubby declared after his
second slice it was absolutely, without a shadow of a doubt, the best cherry
pie he had ever eaten. It was certainly
a lot more work than opening up a can from the store, but by next year we’ll
have forgotten all the trouble and be ready to do it all over again.
Tart Cherry
Lattice Pie
1-1/3 cups sugar
1/3 cup all-purpose
flour
4 cups fresh or
frozen unsweetened
pitted tart cherries,
thawed
and drained
1/4 teaspoon almond
extract
Pastry for a double
crust pie (9 inches)
2 tablespoons butter,
cut into small
pieces
1. Preheat oven to
425 degrees.
2. In a large bowl,
combine sugar and flour; stir in cherries and extract. Line a 9-in. pie plate with bottom pastry;
trim to 1 inch beyond edge of plate.
Pour filling into crust. Dot with
butter.
3. Roll out remaining
pastry; make a lattice crust. Seal and
flute edges. Cover edges loosely with
foil.
4. Bake 20
minutes. Reduce heat to 375
degrees. Remove foil; bake 20-25 minutes
longer or until crust is golden brown and filling is bubbly. Cool on a wire rack. Yield: 6-8 servings.
Copyright © 2015 by Shasta Hamilton
Shasta is a fifth generation rural Kansan now residing in
Enterprise, Kansas. She and her husband
own and operate The Buggy Stop Home-Style Kitchen with their six home-schooled
children. You can reach The Buggy Stop
by calling (785) 200-6385 or visit them on the web at www.thebuggystoprestaurant.com.
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