We are just at the end of cherry season here in Colorado.  Along with our vegetable CSA from Cure Organic Farm, we also purchased a fruit CSA.  Cure Organic Farm doesn’t grow the fruit themselves but partners with other farms mostly on the western slope of Colorado that do grow fruit.  So far this year we have gotten strawberries and cherries, and this week we are getting peaches.  The first couple of weeks of both strawberries and cherries Jeremy and I were very excited about the fruit and ate most of the 2-3 lbs a week right away.  However, now that this was our 4th or 5th week of cherries we weren’t digging into them right away like we had at first.

To use up our abundance of cherries in the fridge the past couple of weeks, I’ve been experimenting with cherry sauces for meat, and this week I wrote down what I did to share with everyone, and also so I can remember next year when we have a ton of cherries.  We’ve had this cherry chutney on both pork chops and chicken and it is delicious with both.  If you are a vegetarian it would also be great as a sauce for rice.   In fact we had grilled chicken with brown rice and this sauce and that alone felt like a pretty complete meal.  Last night we had grilled pork chops with this chutney, roasted potatoes, and roasted asparagus as you can see in the pictures.

2 cups cherries (pitted, destemmed, and roughly chopped)

1/2 onion (chopped)

1 garlic clove (minced)

1 shallot (chopped, optional)

1 tablespoon olive oil

1/2 tablespoon chopped basil (we used some cinnamon basil we are growing but regular basil is nice too)

salt and pepper to taste

dash of ground cloves

dash of cayenne pepper

2 tablespoons of maple syrup

1 cup any combo of vegetable broth, chicken broth, white wine, water (i used vegetable broth this time, last time white wine, but whatever you’ve got would work)

Heat olive oil on medium high.  When it is warm add the onion, garlic, and shallot and salt and pepper to your liking.  Stir frequently until onion is translucent (about 4-5 min).  Add the cherries, and your cup of broth / water / or white wine.  Add a dash of ground cloves, and a dash of cayenne pepper (don’t overdo it, you can add more later). Reduce heat to medium low and let simmer for about 20 minutes until cherries are soft.

Add 2 tablespoons of maple syrup and 1/2 tablespoon of chopped basil.  Taste and adjust seasonings if needed.

We used about half of this for two people and froze the rest in an ice cube tray so we can heat it up in a saucepan in the winter.  Hope you enjoy!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 5th, 2009 at 3:12 pm and is filed under Recipes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.