Fruit fiasco

Happy Monday! The weather is warm and sunny here in Pa. I hope it is just as pleasant where you are.

Over the weekend, I discovered – much to my dismay – that one of the breakers in our garage had tripped up to 24 hours earlier and our deep freezer was without power the whole time. Praise God, the meat in the bottom of the freezer was still frozen solid, but the Ziploc bags of fruit at the top were beginning to thaw, so I had to pull them all out and brainstorm ideas for using (or losing) all the fruit.

So, due to my massive weekend fruit frenzy, I ran out of time to take photos of my spring porch décor. (Stay tuned for that later this week.) Instead, I’ll share with you a delicious and easy cherry crisp recipe, adapted from one of my Amish cookbooks.

Note: I actually used the recipe for rhubarb crunch and substituted (half-thawed) sour cherries — picked from trees in our backyard — for the rhubarb. You could probably substitute other fruits as well and get equally yummy results.

Easy Cherry Crisp

Ingredients:

1 c. all-purpose flour

¾ c. rolled oats

1 c. packed brown sugar

1 tsp. ground cinnamon

½ c. butter or margarine, melted

4 c. pitted cherries

Topping:

1 c. sugar

2 T. cornstarch

1 c. water

1 tsp. vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350°. Combine flour, oats, brown sugar, cinnamon and butter; mix until crumbly. Press half of mixture into ungreased 9-inch square baking dish. Cover with fruit. For topping, combine sugar and cornstarch in small saucepan; add water. Cook and stir about 2 minutes. Remove from heat when mixture begins to thicken. Stir in vanilla. Pour over fruit. Top with remaining crumb mixture. Bake for 50-60 minutes or until bubbly.

Enjoy!