Last Cherry Harvest of this Year

Living here in Italy gives us so many opportunities. One of them is our fruit trees that are all over our yard. Since we had a long winter, our cherries were late bloomers. When they did bloom, we were out eating them off the tree just about every day. When we had a free afternoon, we would pick a lot of them (about 2 gallons) and I would cook them down for pies, cheesecake filling, and to dry out for toppings or snacks.

Mr. Man's birthday was last week and he asked for a cherry pie. That is what I did this weekend - make him a cherry pie. It was my first, and it was delicious if I say so myself. I was proud of it. But I did also learn what I would do differently.

Yesterday was a pretty day. But the week wasn't looking so great. We knew if we wanted to get one more harvest of cherries from our trees we had to do it that afternoon. So we did.

But once you pick them, you can't freeze them because they will taste like nuts... and lose their great flavor. So our only option was to pit them right away and cook them down to freeze for pies, cheesecake fillings, and so forth. That is what we spent our afternoon doing.