Dying for Summer Apple or Pear and Cherry Almond Crisp

When you grow up in sour cherry country, you develop a very expensive problem, and this Dying for Summer Apple or Pear and Cherry Almond Crisp is a great solution. Your problem? You need sour cherries. Too bad they’re really difficult to get outside of cherry country. And outside of cherry season. And definitely really expensive when outside of season and county. In college I used to make sure that I horded some cherries in July and ferried them home with me on the plane. Then travel changed and frozen cherries in their own juice became considered a dangerous hazard, cue eye roll. But despite the change in airline regulations, I still had a strong need for cherries. To be sure, there are some fancy companies that will ship frozen cherries anytime of the year for a small fortune, and now that I have a friend with access to sour cherries here in Philly, some of my problem has been solved by freezing them in July. But just in case, I have come up with some workarounds for myself when cherry fever hits and I’m without sour cherries. This Dying for Summer Apple or Pear and Cherry Almond Crisp is one … Continue reading

Cherry Oatmeal Cookies

For me, a Super Bowl means football. Football means the Packers. Packers mean Wisconsin. Wisconsin means sour cherries. This is quite the causal chain, huh? If you followed me this far, you’ll probably agree that the obvious dessert for a Super Bowl Party is Door County Cherry Oatmeal Cookies. I can’t really claim credit for these cookies as an original idea. The recipe is based on the cookies I used to have in Door County at places like Wagon Trail and Seaquist Orchards and years of making the Toll House recipe for chocolate chip cookies. Even though I now make the Jacques Torres recipe (always), I still have the Toll House memorized and I use it as the basis for most of my cookie recipe improvisations. These cherry oatmeal cookies are really easy to make. They’re really delicious. You could make the dough this weekend and store it in the fridge until next weekend. Then you could preheat the oven during the third quarter and surprise your guests with hot cookies during the fourth quarter. Or you can bake Cherry Oatmeal Cookies ahead of time and serve them whenever. And once you’ve learned how to make these, they just might … Continue reading