Cherry Pandowdy

Ordinarily, I love going to the grocery store. Is that weird? There is something about perusing the aisles, selecting our food for the week, putting it in the cart, and being able to bring it all home and put it away...there is something ridiculously satisfying there.

However, if I'm tired, and - even worse - hungry, then oh no. Watch out. This was the case yesterday. I went in to the office for a few hours on Sunday, and for some dumb reason I neglected to eat anything all day. I then went to the grocery store, and I didn't realize how tired and hungry I was until I found myself in the baking aisle, tiredly trying to decide if I really needed one of those dish sponges with the handle on it. And this was already after I'd thrown a melon baller and an onion-saver container in my cart. I then moseyed over to the shampoo aisle, where I think I spent a good 20 minutes testing out different scents until I found one that I liked. Just call me pokey! I finally woke up when I turned around and was startled to find an older gentleman right behind me. "Oh, don't worry, I'm not stalking you," he told me reassuringly. "I'm just trying to admire your beauty." Um, creepy old man, that's pretty much the same thing.

After that wake-up call, I made a bee-line for the check-out lane. But suddenly, I spotted cherries over in the produce department. Cherries. Yessssss. I excitedly grabbed a bag and threw it in my cart, looking over my shoulder the entire time for Mr. Stalker.

So I spent my late afternoon pitting cherries. Which is always better than being at work. Here's a trick to pitting cherries: use the blunt end of a bamboo skewer (or chopstick) to push the pit out. Easy!

And have you ever made a Pandowdy? I hadn't, either. I chose this recipe because I already had a pie crust in the freezer that I'd made a few months ago and was wanting to use it up. A pandowdy is basically an easier version of pie. As you can from my pictures, my pie crust ended up being torn into pieces and laid on top, because someone was tired and couldn't roll out her crust very well.

Cherry Pandowdy

adapted from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything

6 cups washed and pitted cherries (about 2 lbs cherries with pits)

sugar to taste, plus 2 tbsp

the juice of 1 lemon

butter for greasing the pan

1 recipe pie crust (Bittman recommends using his Sweetened Enriched pie crust, which uses 2 yolks and more sugar...I plan on doing that next time)

1 tbsp milk

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Toss the fruit with the sugar and lemon juice, and let sit for 5 minutes. Spread the fruit in the bottom of a greased 8" square or 9" round baking pan.

2. Roll out your pie crust, and carefully lay it over the fruit. Tuck in the corners and edges under the fruit. Brush the top of the crust with milk. Mix the remaining sugar with the cinnamon, and sprinkle on top.

3. Bake for about 30 minutes. At this point you can score the top in a "x" pattern, or push some of the crust down into the hot, bubbly fruit. Bake for an additional 15 minutes or so, until the crust is nice and browned.

4. Serve with vanilla ice cream, if desired. And why wouldn't you want to do that?