I love, love, love cherries! It was very sad when the same blight that killed my peach trees last year, also took my nicest cherry tree. 😦

So when a good friend offered cherries in exchange for some help picking their cherry tree – we jumped at it!

We got the kids all busy picking the loaded tree, and then stoning the cherries.

We had several hand held stoners that worked pretty good, one table top stoner that was a piece of junk, one of her boys just popped the stones out with his hand, but my favorite way was using a straw about 3 inches long. We just poked it into the cherry and it pushed the stone out on the other side.

And yes – there were rotten cherry fights and cherry stone spitting contests – and when we were done – all the kids jumped in the pool and played – some with their clothes on! 🙂

You’ve heard the saying “Helping hands will get things done – half the effort, twice the fun” – well it’s true – we proved it!

Meanwhile, we took the stoned cherries and put them in freezer bags (about 5 cups per quart bag) split them between us and froze them.

Except for one bag. That bag came home with me and immediately became my favorite Cherry Crisp. The recipe came from my mom – and is my all-time favorite cherry recipe.

Cherry Crisp

Mix together:

2 quart bags of cherries
1 cup sugar
1 tsp. almond flavoring
3 Tbsp. tapioca

Cut together:

6 Tbsp. butter, melted
1 yellow or white cake mix

Place cherry mixture into 9X13, Top with crumb mixture. Bake 350 degrees for 30 minutes.

Simple, easy, delicious.

Enjoy!

I’ve linked this post at Mouth Watering Monday over at A Southern Fairy Tale, Tasty Tuesday over at Beauty and Bedlam, and Tempt my Tummy Tuesday at Blessed with Grace.