A Bountiful Spring

We had what felt like a perfect spring season this year. Of course nothing is ever perfect…but this year came close. Once the weather began to warm up enough for the spring bloom to begin, we never had a killing freeze or frost. In my part of the country, this is unusual. Because I’m mostly a flower/perennial gardener, I usually feel the loss of bloom caused by these late freezes and frosts most keenly in the loss of daffodils, tulips, magnolia blossoms, etc. This year their bloom was glorious.

When I moved a few years ago, my property came with some recently planted fruit trees: sweet cherry, Seckel pear and peach. Because they were young…and the wild life voracious…I have never tasted much of their fruit. Last year, maturity seemed to have begun to arrive: there was a noticeable increase in the production of cherries and the tree produced enough for me to have a nice little crop in addition to what the critters hoovered up. This spring, when I saw the magnificent bloom (undiminished by a late frost), I knew I was in for a bumper crop. And it proved to be so. There was more than enough for all. Because harvesting fruit isn’t built into my schedule, I wasn’t able to get all the fruit available to me…but I spent every minute I could harvesting and pitting.

Sweet Cherries

Since part of the goal of my newsletter is to open up a window into my kitchen so you can see what I’m actually cooking right now, I thought I would share some of the things I made with my cherries. Even if you don’t have a cherry tree, you can make any of these recipes…simply substitute whatever sweet cherry (most likely Bing) that is available to you.

I’m sure that no one is surprised that I made a cherry coffeecake (with chocolate chips and walnuts):

…and cherry ice cream:

Both of these are recent posts from my blog. Over the years I have posted several recipes using Bing cherries to my blog. The recipes are mostly for desserts/sweets…but there is one savory pork recipe in the mix that might interest those of you who prefer savory cooking. The recipe can easily be pared down from six servings to one or two simply by adjusting the pan size down to accommodate the smaller quantity of ingredients.

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