Removing cherry pits

We have this insert in our paper called Dash.  For the most part I never read inserts, but since I've decided to save with coupons I try to peruse these sections now.  I love Dash.  It has all these great food and drink recipes that I cut out and never use.  This issue of the little magazine was all about summer grilling, something that I do not do because it involves fire.  While I have progressed to lighting candles, after being an administrative assistant to a Partylite consultant, I don't do anything else that involves fire.  But that's another blog entry for another time.

In the beginning of the issue was a tiny blurb about removing pits from cherries.  I found this interesting because one, I had just bought some expensive bing cherries, and two, I find removing the pits a major concern.  In the summer I make a lot of fruit salads because the fruit is plentiful and my girls eat it like crazy.  They do not eat cherries.  Their reason is that they don't like the "seed".  I try to sneak in cherries in the fruit salad, but find it a pain to remove the pit.  This consists of cutting the cherry in half, digging out the pit with my fingers because it is easier then using the knife, and tossing the halves into the salad.  I usually get bored of doing this around cherry number 5.  But the cherries are always beat up looking and for the most part sit at the bottom of the bowl because my kids eat around them.

The blurb suggested two ways to pit a cherry.  The second way involved using the flat end of a knife and that is pretty much all I understood of the complicated removal.  The first suggestion was easier.  It said to take a straw, insert it into the dimple of the cherry, push it through, and ta da pit removed.  Hmmm...  .

 I washed and de-stemmed my cherries

 

The straws that I have are the tiny flexible, "bendy" straws because that is what my grocery sells.  I looked at this straw and looked at the cherry and thought, "No way in hell."

Luckily, I have a daughter who purchases Slurpees 24/7 with her babysitting money.  In my straw bin was this Slurpee straw that was certainly much more worthy.

I pushed the straw through the dimple.  (The ugly looking bruise on my thumb is just lighting and remember the no nail biting was last year's resolution)

The first cherry I did, before filming, worked like a charm.  The straw went right through the cherry and the pit actually came out the other end attached to the straw.  The rest of them didn't work like that.  But it did work.  I just had to put some muscle into the pushing and ta da out came the pit.  And quite a bit of cherry juice.  Note:  Make sure to do this over something that will not stain.

When finished the cherries are whole, but with a large hole in them.  I managed to do this with five cherries before I got bored and tired.

I've decided to stick with my full-proof method which is:  take a cherry, bite off half, remove bit with teeth, spit pit in garbage.  Usually the second half gets tossed into my mouth, but sometimes it makes it into the fruit bowl.

Bon Appetite'