Pie's the Limit: Cheery Cherry Sharing

Because sharing really is caring.

Two universes have recently come together in a most wonderfully serendipitous way. First, it so happens that I have finished my four week contract teaching the Indigenous Entrepreneurship course in Maskwacis, Alberta and my heart is so full because I had absolutely stellar students in my class - I cannot wait to see what they accomplish! And it’s there that the first Universe came together.

On my last day, they honoured me at first with a surprise pot luck sort of lunch that we all shared and then they gave me some very beautiful and thoughtful gifts. My student Krissy (whose entrepreneurial talents will be focused on her baking and her beading through her company Omeasoo Creations) even made some cherry pie for dessert. Unbeknownst to her, cherry is my favourite - and after we all enjoyed that one she surprised me with the other entire one to take home! 

Of course, as soon as I got in the door back home, I wanted to share with my sweetie Jason but before I could cut into it he insisted we needed our favourite vanilla gelato (from Little Bear Gelato) so we zipped over to our favourite place to eat, Culina-to-Go, to grab a pint before closing but not without bringing the pie to share with one of the Cree chefs there - Ashley, who is always slipping us a dinner-sized “sample” of her latest kitchen creations (yummy bannock!!) to us so it felt amazing to return the favour :)  [Editor’s note] Okay, o.k. That was a run-on sentence for sure, but Colleen had just driven 90+ minutes back home and I had to have pie with vanilla gelato right then and there so we barely got in the door at Culina and Ashley was cleaning up for close and then Colleen had to gift her some pie and by that time there was only had 5 minutes until close! It was very exciting but soooo worth it.  It. was. Glorious!! Friday Pieday!! [JMC]

The next day we actually hid the pie from ourselves in the corner lazy susan cupboard [Jason:] Krissy had thoughtfully provided a mobile pie carrier which was big and a bit too obvious and tempting sitting on the counter… [JMC] and I already had to leave for dog sitting, so I was leaving almost half a pie in Jason‘s capable (culpable? LOL) hands. I did remember though to cut a piece to share with my dad but then later in the week when I returned home to grab some more supplies for dog sitting, Jason carefully pulled out the very last piece of pie (that he had re-hidden from himself in the back of the fridge) and exclaimed quite dramatically, “Please, dear God take this delicious pie away!” Ironically, he was sharing my pie with me by NOT eating the last piece! LOL. Sharing is caring :) 

Then the second universe came together because it also just so happens that where I’m dog sitting they have a huge cherry tree in their backyard that is just days away from being perfectly ripe! So every day I go out back in the morning when I am trying to convince the very sweet dog Twila to, “Please please go to the washroom!” - which she does not, and then I have to pick a few cherries to see where they are at. I’m not even kidding; so as of this writing, we are a couple days away from a harvest and then that tree is going to be cleared of cherries. What were the chances?!

Whew! So with the love of cherries and sharing fresh in our hearts, we wanted to do a short and sweet article this week to give you some information on how to actually pick cherries, because we kinda picked the first ones wrong. After we picked them, I remembered that when I see cherries at Steve & Dan’s Fresh BC fruit stands (HEY! BTW, have you heard about 2024’s Fresh Fruit Frost Fraud!?) they always have the stems on them… and I wondered why? Well I’m gonna share with you all in a second plus I will also give you a quick and easy recipe to enjoy those cherries.  [Jason] And I knew there was something I was not supposed to be doing but couldn’t remember just what. It’s a treeplanting thing from my youth… [JMC]

Harvesting some Cherries

When I say we picked the cherries wrong on our first go round, we technically sort of picked them wrong and we weren’t careful. FIRST FUN FACT: A very important caveat that you need to remember, is that while you may want the stem to come off with the cherry, you don’t want to pull the spur off as well. The spur is the point right where the stem meets the branch that is necessary to produce more fruit the next year. So if you remove the spur, with the stem and cherry then you’re actually damaging the tree and it will have less fruit the following year - MEEP!!

1. So if harvesting to use cherries right away: You can just simply pull the cherry off of the stem and plop it in your bucket. Cherries with stems travel better and last a little longer in that “fresh picked” state. Bonus tip: If you pinch the cherry just right, and twist a little as you pull the pit will stay attached to the stem remaining on the tree - Neat!

2. Harvesting the cherries to use them later: For this technique you actually want to take the stem with the cherry hence, why I always see cherries with stems on them for sale at the farmers market. USE TWO HANDS: use one hand to lift the stems upwards while holding near the spur on the branch before pulling so the spur is not damaged or pulled off with the stems. With the stem is still attached, the cherry will keep fresher for longer if it’s traveling or sitting. So if you need the cherries to last for a little bit, you want to make sure to pick them very carefully with the stem on and saving the spur so the tree can produce again the following year. 

When it’s okay to have yourself a pitty party. (Don’t get into the pits. Or it’s not the pits?)

Taking the pits out of the cherries doesn’t have to be hard at all. One technique is by inserting a chopstick or a good old plastic straw into the divot where the stem connected and pushing the pit out the backside of the cherry. You’ll have a nice round cherry and the pits will slide out, easy peasy. There are other ways, of course like you can just squish the cherries and pop the pit out if your daring, don’t mind a mess and are going to stew or blend up the cherries anyway so they don’t have to look pretty. Some people, depending on how firm the cherries are, will actually just cut around the diameter of the cherry and pull the pit out. I did even see one crazy method that was to take a paperclip, turn it into a hook and then use that to pull the pit out. That’s way too complicated! I say just keep your life simple - poke the pit out the back end or cut and pull the pit out.

Some quick Storage and Recipe ideas

You can freeze them if you’re not going to be using them right away just make sure to get as much air out of the freezer bag as you can to avoid freezer burn! Or you could turn them into a beautiful cherry pie like Krissy did but that might not store for very long around here! A super simple recipe is to take some cherries and put them into a heavy bottom pot and then cook with a sweetener to taste. Experiment to your hearts delight with honey, maple syrup, brown sugar, agave, stevia, agave or even molasses! [Editor’s note:] We have a pretty interesting series on Aroma coming up which would be perfect here to explain taste layering with cherries, brandy, cinnamon and brown sugar but Colleen is slacking and hasn’t written it yet! Oh, I mean to think of it as strategic slacking—giving the cherries AND the article time to ripen. [JMC]

You don’t have to be fancy here, with cherries if you want to keep it low sugar, keep it low sugar just being careful not to “sample” your whole batch. Cook until the sugar is dissolved and then when that cools you can just put that in any old jar and keep it in your fridge. Now this will not be preserved cherries by any means. This is more like, “I’m gonna eat these in the next two days” kind of cherries! Of course, if you have more cherries than you can eat right away, you could make some cherry pies or some cherry tarts. And if you don’t want to be fussing with any pastry shells - hey, you can make your life easier because there’s lots of stores that sell frozen pastry crusts.  After all, it’s the pie eating that you want to get to! [Editor’s note:] There’s definitely a Colleen “Get in my pie hole!” joke here, but I’m a gentleman and not touching it? ahahahahaha [JMC]

FINAL FUN FACT: Growing up one of my favourite chocolate treats was the Cherry Blossom, remember those?  (Photo from DIEFENBUNKER’s site)

I know a lot of you are gagging right now as it was not a big fan favourite out there but let us know if you also loved it! Should I try to make a Colleen’s Chocolates Cherry Blossom? And, recipes!!! What would you make with kilos of fresh cherries?

Remember Sharing is Caring, so give us your favourite tips, tricks and recipes.