Kathleen's Cherry Pie

One of my favorite desserts (especially in the summer) is my mom's cherry pie.  Cherry pie is such a labor of love.  Labor for mom, love for me. A couple of summers ago, I was enlisted to pick cherries with my sister-in-law.  It was the year of the locusts.  And boy did the locusts love hiding in the cherry trees waiting for sweet, innocent girls to come find them.  Those things felt like the size of an albatross as they were flying at our heads.  We.were.screaming.  And no one came to help us.  They just sat inside and laughed at us because that's how my family rolls.  The harvest is always worth the end product--the pie.

I can't make a post about Kathleen's Cherry Pie without posting the recipe.  Mom likes to give vague generalizations for her signature dishes like "boil it until it looks right" and "I just eyeball it."  I was very shocked when I asked for her recipe that she gave actual measurements.  Cherry pie is kind of like the weather in Iowa--unpredictable.  Sometimes it's runny, sometimes it's not.  Sometimes it's sour, sometimes it's sweet.  A fun fact about cherry pie: it always gets eaten.  Also another fun fact:  I like to talk about facts that aren't facts, just things that I make up.

Libby helped me cut out the letters for our pie.  Daphne had to sit this one out, because flour.  I added the letters to my pie to fool the consumers into thinking it was extraordinary. It worked.  I have been eyeing these cute little cookie cutters so that I can write corny phrases like Hello Sweetie Pie on my next pie just so my husband rolls his eyes at me.  These plates would also make super-cute dessert plates! I love all of the phrases.  

Tate got me two cherry trees for Mother's Day this year.  He and Libby planted them together while I played a super fun game of GET OUT OF THE ROAD with Daphne.  I can't wait until we have our own harvest, but for now I will continue to mooch off my mom.  Happy baking!  Stay away from the locusts.