Roasted Sour Cherries

Every once in a while I get lucky and today I got lucky.  I am landscaping a section of my parent's garden, which means I have to go up to their place in North Van.  If I have a car on my trip up there and it is the summer time then I always, always, always stop at Bob's fruit stand.  This is especially true during peach season.  I can easily eat five peaches in a sitting and allow myself to gorge on them during their short, beautiful season.  Bob's trucks their produce up from the Okanagan so their stuff is local and absolutely gorgeous.

As I was preparing for my peach fix, I happened to notice a little something new at Bob's.  Sour cherries.  I asked about them and discovered that the season here is about a week long, which is why I have never seen them before.

These little beauties are going to be my secret weapon in an upcoming pie competition.  Yes.  You read that correctly.  My next pie competition is coming up and the judges are not going to know what hit them!
 

Right now my plan is top secret so I can't share too many details.  One ingredient that my utterly delicious pie will contain though is roasted sour cherries.  Here's how to do it.

Directions

1) Stem your cherries, toss them with a little olive oil, salt and freshly ground black pepper.  Pop them in the oven at 350 F and stir every ten minutes or so.

2) The cherries will split and release their juice and once they are soft, they are done.  Let them cool and then remove the pits.  I am freezing mine because I didn't want to take a chance on them spoiling if canning didn't work.  I drained the juice before freezing and froze it separately.

Check back in September for my ultra-decadent pie entry.

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Shonagh explores the guts of food in An Offal Experiment.