Sour red cherries are the best kind of cherries for pie. The season is very short so grab them when you can! (Those are whole wheat berries beside the cherry basket.)
It's easy to pit the cherries. We use handy little "S" shaped gadgets to remove the pits. These gadgets are readily available. They are expensive if purchased in a kitchen store, but very inexpensive to make your own. All you need are some of these:
Carefully, bend a clip out to make it look like an "S" and after washing the cherries well (there was lots of dust on the cherries we bought), start pitting. It might seem labour intensive but it's no more difficult or time-consuming than checking that jarred "pitted" cherries are indeed pit-free.
To pit the cherries, first pull out the stem. It's very rare that the pit will come out at the same time!!
Push the hook end into the cherry where the stem was. Fish around a little to catch the pit and pull it out.
Once the cherries are pitted, add sugar. Make sure to do this about 2 hours before assembling the pie. We don't add a lot even though these are sour red cherries.
Great pie!! The flavour of the pie made with fresh sour red cherries is a thousand times better than that made with tinned sour red cherries. While both are good, the fresh cherry pie tastes like CHERRY pie!!
