Receta Quick and Easy Fresh Cherry Pie

With the abundance of summer fruit, I regularly make pies. We are particularly fond of cherry pie and as such I've developed a quick and easy method when I don't have the time for my fully homemade version. If you don't tell your guests they will not realize you didn't spend hours on it. But when time permits, I make it all from scratch. So today I wanted to share the recipe for the quick & easy version as I most often hear from readers that they just don't have the time to cook or bake. With this version, you really have no excuse!

As in all things cooking, the real key is to select good quality ingredients and here I'm speaking mostly of the cherries. You are not looking for traditional sour pie cherries, but rather the easy-to-find big, dark red, Bing cherries that most every grocer carries. They are good for snacking raw and equally good for pie if you use this method. I know we were all taught that sour cherries are best for pies, but really they were used for pies because they were abundant, cheap and grew on the tree in your backyard or neighborhood. They really weren't good for anything but cooking because they were so tart and small. So trust me when I tell you that the Bing cherry works great. They are naturally sweet so need less sugar and are very firm so hold up well in baking. And as a bonus, Bing cherries are high in anti-oxidants that are said to help sufferers of arthritis and gout. Who would have thought cherry pie is a health food!

Of course, with any cherry you have to remove the pit and for this there is a special tool that makes the job easy and efficient. If you are going to make anything with cherries, make the small investment for this handy little gadget. Unless you are going into cherry pie production, I would suggest you invest in one of the less expensive models like the Oxo version. You simply insert one cherry at a time and push the pit out.