First Fruit Share

This week we got more greens, fava beans, another gorgeous head of red leaf lettuce, plus some cucumbers, and zucchini and squash.

And, drum roll please, we got our first taste of fruit - some sour cherries and regular sweet cherries. 


See the difference?

Sour cherries on their own leave me wanting, to be quite honest.  But bake them in a little pie-cup, like I did here . . .

. . . and all I'm wanting is more.  I'm sorry, but pie making is not my specialty (maybe because I never measure anything that goes in a pie - ever), but I think I tossed about 3 cups of the pitted sour cherries with about a cup of sugar, a quarter cup of flour, and some lemon juice.  I used Mark Bittman's Flaky Pie Crust recipe.  I am the lousiest roller-outer of dough, even with my zip-up plastic circle that is supposed to yield a perfectly even, round pie crust.  Plus, it was almost ninety degrees in my kitchen, and the butter was melting far too quickly, even with putting the pan in the freezer in between filling each muffin cup with the dough.  I ended up just smooshing dough globs in there.  Then I took my foil pieces (that I had pre-fashioned in the shape of the cups before inserting the dough), and greased them and put them on top of the moulded dough.  Then I filled the foil cups with beans.  See?

Then after these baked at 425 degrees for 12 minutes, I discarded the foil and beans, and filled the semi-baked cups of dough with the cherry/sugar mixture, and baked that at 350 degrees for about 45 mins.  After letting them cool (not too long, or you'll never get them out), I just scooped them out of their cups, and put them in little ramekins.  Of course I ate one.  Had to.  And did you know that a baked sour cherry is a taste that can alter your life?  Now, take many baked sour cherries, with sugar, and inside a crumbly, buttery, crust - well, that can just blow any other taste experience out of the water.  Hands down.  The most wonderful, delightful thing to come out of my oven.  And a LOT of things come out of my oven. 

Well, I steamed the zucchini and squash tonight.  The greens, I blanched again, and will saute them later in the week.  But the sour cherry tartletts - they may not last a day.