Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Life is just a bowl of chevre


The great homesteading adventure continues with an enormous, and I do mean beyond believably huge, gift of cherries. I spent the better part of a day dealing with approximately 60 (sixty, six-zero, I-know-it's-a-lot) pounds of cherries. I did this job without benefit a "pitter," which is some sort of appliance my farmgirl friend offered to lend me when she saw my purple (all-natural) manicure after the fact.
I dried nearly all of the cherries in my dehydrator. There is nothing as delicious as dried cherries! Well, the pears may compete, but there's another month for the cherries to stand alone on the platform of perfection.
And here's my favorite recipe for dried cherries (works well with fresh cherries too, but of course those are only around a couple of weeks a year):
Cherry Chevre Salad
One head red-leaf Romaine lettuce
One cup (or so) baby spinach leaves
One cup fresh chevre, crumbled
Half-cup toasted walnuts
Half-cup dried cherries
Balsamic vinegar and olive oil dressing with orange juice and minced garlic
Toss it all together right before serving
That's it! I know, it's not really a recipe. But it's so good.
We'll have no trouble using the cherries in salads, trail mix, muffins and granola. I have heard some people freeze cherries. And of course there's always cherry preserve.
Any other ideas for me?

5 comments:

Heather said...

Yum. I heart cherries and that picture. Let me know if you have too many cherries and need to get rid of some. :)

Misty said...

I am so jealous. No wait... I.AM.SO. JEALOUS!!! Wait... is there a way to get the letters even larger, and bolder?
hopefully you get my point.
(and I am looking for my cherry care package in the mail. :) )

QuiltedSimple said...

I LOVE dried cherries! I'm trying to find somewhere by us taht I can buy them in bulk. yum
Kris

Vickie said...

You are to blame!!! I'm going to have to say it's your fault!! I will be saying but she did it first. Those cherries look delish right now as I'm wide a wake at almost 2 in the morning. I've been dehydrating this week making up a large batch of beef jerky that never last long enough in this house and did up a couple onions. Now I'm going to have to go look and see if I can find some cherries at a reasonable price. I love dehydrating! So you are going to have to tell me what you did to the cherries. Please I have to know. Not sure if I want the purple fingers but then again if it comes down to it oh well. lol Take Care :)

Vickie said...

Oh by the way if you tell me how to do the cherries I won't blame it on you. lol