Cherry Season Is Upon Us!

Cherry season is upon us. Today I took my boys to go pick at a local orchard. They had a blast picking what they could reach. They're not quite tall enough to reach the ripest ones. We still came out pretty well though. We came home with 18 lbs.

So now I'm plagued with the question of, "What am I going to do with all those cherries?" Well, there are the obvious few right off the bat that I can think of. Cherry pie and cherry cobbler I think are about the most popular way to use cherries.That and making pie filling (to the right is a picture of the filling I made with all my leftover cherries - 19 pints)

Since I have so much, I'm trying to branch out a bit from those great ideas. I did some searches today and for pastries came up with cherry oatmeal cookies, cherry shortcake, cherry oatmeal muffins, and even a lemon pound cake with cherry compote. I looked into canning pie filling and cherries.

I even came across a few dinner recipes. What I made tonight was pork chops with balsamic cherry sauce. It was wonderful! You can tell Mike is gone right now because I definitely don't cook like this much when he's gone. It was a little sweet, but went great with the pork.

Here's a link to the recipe I found for tonight's menu.
http://www.google.com/m/url?client=ms-android-verizon&ei=SzwdTMCuL5DOqgOxi6lO&q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.tablascreek.com%2Fpdf%2FTCV_recipe_porkchops.pdf&resnum=2&sa=X&source=android-home&ved=0CBAQFjABOBQ&usg=AFQjCNEXUCMV_dVJvvunUAyvSdEblySn6Q

I definitely suggest giving it a try if you are in the midst of cherry season like I am. I'm always interested in what recipes and suggestions you guys come up with too, so keep 'em coming!