It’s cherry season in Recycla’s home state of Virginia. While she loves apples, which are Virginia’s state fruit, cherries are her favorite fruit of all. Thus, for the next few weeks, she’ll be buying lots and lots of cherries and doing all sorts of fun things with them, in addition to just standing at the kitchen sink and eating them straight up.
To start with, Recycla will be freezing cherries for the cold months. Her breakfast of choice in January is oatmeal with cherries, but she has other uses in mind for all that sweet delicious fruit.
Freezing cherries is super easy:
- Wash the fruit
- Pit the cherries using a tool like this one.
- Afterward, cut each cherry in half, to make sure no pits snuck by you.
- Put the cherries in a freezer-safe container and stick them in the freezer.
That’s it. Cherries hold up well in the freezer and, since they’re $5 for a 1-lb bag at Recycla’s grocery store, she’d rather do a little work during the summer now and save some money later.
One thing to be aware of is that cherry juice stains, so wear an apron or old clothes when you’re working. Recycla’s hands usually look like Lady MacBeth’s when she’s done working on a pound of cherries and her kitchen counters are a red hot mess. But the extra scrubbing is worth it when Recycla makes cherry almond crisp or dark chocolate and cherry brownies. Drool…
Tell the Eco Women: What is your favorite way to eat cherries?
Oh lordy, yes, cherries in the Spring. We are getting Rainier and some kind of dark sweet red cherry in the markets. I’ll try freezing some, good idea!
Jenny
Clafoutis. Best. Dessert. Ever.
It’s ridiculous how easy it is to freeze berries!