Homemade Cherry Pie

Nothing says summer like a good old-fashioned cherry pie made with freshly picked pie cherries from the farmer's market. Make sure you have some vanilla ice cream on hand!

Ingredients:

1 box prepared pie crust (2 crusts)
pie cherries, enough to make 4 cups when pitted
1 - 1 1/4 cups sugar
1/4 cup flour
milk or beaten egg to brush crust
extra sugar to sprinkle on crust

Directions:

Removing pits from pie cherries using a straw

Wash, stem, and pit cherries. The fastest way to pit the cherries (I pitted 20 lbs. of pie cherries this year and tested several) is to remove the stem, insert a drinking straw into the stem "hole" and push the pit right out. I had a young assistant remove the stems for me, which saved a lot of time.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Press one pie crust into the bottom of a pie plate. Place pie plate on cookie sheet to contain spills.

Add 1/4 cup flour to pitted pie cherries

Add 1 to 1 1/4 cup sugar to pitted pie cherries

Mix pie cherries, sugar and flour in a bowl.

Place in pie crust.

Cherry pie with lattice crust using strips of prepared pie crust

Cut second pie crust into strips. Arrange in a lattice pattern across the top of the pie. Brush with a little egg or milk and sprinkle with a little more sugar.