Cherries, cherries, cherries!

When I got home last week from my two-week trip I was amazed to see how overflowing and abundant everything was. The cherries, hard little greenish blobs when I left, were ripe and ready to pick! The daisies are blooming, there are raspberries to pick, the beans are 6 feet or taller, and everything else looks huge.



If you want to see dramatic change in your yard or garden, just leave home for a week or two!



Jeremy and his new intern have picked almost 20 pounds of cherries. We still have several bags of frozen cherries from last year so Jeremy is experimenting with drying most of these.



This is the "fruit roll up" batch. Later batches look much better!


I decided I had to make my tart cherry muffins. And then I had a brainstorm and decided to throw in some cocoa to make them chocolate cherry muffins. Holy cow! So tasty!



The cocoa is my addition, but I got the recipe online from some place called the Cherry Hut. Here it is:

The Cherry Hut's Tart Cherry Muffins


3 cups flour (about 1/4 cup less if you use cocoa)
3/4 cup baking cocoa
3/4 cup sugar
1 ½ Tbsp baking powder
¼+ tsp. salt
1 Tbsp. cinnamon
2 eggs, beaten well
1/4+ cup oil
1 ¾ cups milk
2 cups tart cherries, pitted and chopped

Mix wet and dry ingredients together. Add cherries. Pour into greased muffin pans. Bake at 350 degrees for 18 minutes. (Makes 48 muffins.

Originally it was a pretty runny batter - but with the addition of the cocoa it firmed up and did very well. Those muffins were gone so fast...