Cherry Crumble Lover

You know what’s good with greek yogurt and cereal the day after 4th of July?

Leftover Cherry Crumble. Oh, yes. Very good.

The Cherry Crumble was one of the recipes I developed with the beautiful cherries Whole Foods sent my way last week.

Cherry Fest is in full swing at Whole Food right now and the produce section is stuffed full of delicious sweet cherries just begging to be eaten.

I actually had two recipes in mind when I picked these babies up – one sweet and one savory. The sweet was the Cherry Crumble and the savory was a Cherry, Kale, Feta, and Quinoa Salad that was a HUGE hit at last night’s 4th of July party (it’s all gone!). But before I could do anything with the cherries, I had one problem – the pits.

Does anyone else tend to shy away from cooking with fresh cherries simply because pitting the cherries can be an annoyingly time consuming task? I know that I usually hate it. That’s why when I picked up the cherries, I also picked up one of these bad boys.

It’s a cherry/olive pitter and it was about $10 at the Target above Whole Foods. I’m sure the pitter will become one of those tools that I’ll only use once or twice a year and will simply take up space in a random drawer the rest of the time (like my strawberry slicer and pineapple corer), but it was 100% worth the purchase with the three bags of cherries I had to pit. 100% worth it.

All i had to do was remove the stem and place the cherry in the center of the pitter

Squeeze the pitter

And out popped the pit

I was left with a pit-less cherry that looked like a tiny bullet had cleared right through it. Pretty nifty, right?

Even with the pitter, it still took 30+ minutes to pit all 3 pounds of sweet cherries for the crumble.

But the process was pretty mindless. Derek actually helped by removing the stems on all the cherries, and we had Facetime set up on his iPhone so we could talk to his brother in Maryland while we pitted (Tyler was actually cleaning on his end, so it was a big party of watching each other do chores on Facetime. )

I started with the crumble first and used the two bags of the darker, sweet cherries. I’m not 100% sure what the exact poundage was for the cherries, so you’ll have to bear with me on my cherry estimates for this recipes.

Cherry Crumble

Ingredients

Cherry Filling:

• 3 lbs of fresh sweet cherries, pitted (about 2 bags worth)
• 1 tablespoon corn starch
• 4 tablespoons sugar
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice
• 1/4 cup water

Crumble Topping:

• 1 cup all purpose flour
• 3/4 cup rolled oats
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 stick of butter
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil

Preheat the oven to 375.

For the filling, start by adding the cherries to a large pot on medium-low.

Coat the cherries with the corn starch, sugar, lemon, and water, then slowly cook on medium-low for 15-20 minutes, or until the cherries have started to break down and are nice and juicy.

While the cherries are breaking down, place all of the crumble topping ingredients in a separate bowl and mix together until combined (should be slightly doughy, yet crumbly).

When the cherries are done, pour them into a 2 quart dish and top with with the crumble mix.

Bake for 35 minutes at 375, or until the crumble topping is a golden brown.

Can be served hot with ice cream or it’s good cold on it’s own.

Also, like I said above, the leftovers make a killer greek yogurt topping in the morning.

The Rainier cherries are a little milder in flavor, so I knew they would make a great addition to the savory dish I was dreaming up.

Once the Cherry Crumble was out of the oven, I broke the pitter back out and got to work on dish #2.

Cherry, Kale, Feta, and Quinoa Salad

• 2 cups quinoa
• 4 cups water
• 1 lb Rainier Cherries, pitted and diced ( or any cherries, I just thought the Rainiers were nice in this dish)
• 3 cups fresh kale
• 1 red onion, diced
• 1 cup feta cheese
• 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 tablespoon fresh thyme
• 1 tablespoon fresh oregano
• salt and pepper

Start by bringing the 4 cups of water and 2 cups of quinoa to a boil. Then bring down to medium-low and cook, covered, for 20 minutes.

In a separate pan, saute the onion in a little bit of olive oil. Once the onions are translucent, add the kale, cherries, thyme, and oregano. Cook for about 5 minutes.

Remove the veggies from the heat. Combine with the quinoa, balsamic vinegar, olive oil, and feta until everything is well mixed. Place the salad in the fridge for 2 hours. Serve cold.

This was a hit at the party yesterday. We arrived with a HUGE container of it and left with enough for one or two servings. I was hoping to have the leftovers for lunch today, but Derek beat me to it and had the rest last night after we got home.

What was your favorite 4th of July dish from yesterday’s festivities?

My friend Anthony just sent me his recipe for the moroccan carrots he brought yesterday. I think that one wins for my favorite ( after the Cherry Crumble, of course ).