This is kind of an unplanned blog, like Saturday was kind of an unplanned day. The boys won their baseball game, ignoring the heat with a win or go home mentality that reminds me really how old they are getting. When we got home, the kids blew up rafts for the pond while we froze enough tart cherries, which came in from Michigan only Friday, for fourteen pies. Then, after pizza over charcoal and maybe the most delicious sweet corn ever, we made Dutch Oven Cherry Cobbler.
Dutch Oven Cherry Cobbler is a camping desert that we’ve devoured since I was tiny. A Dutch oven is a heavy cast iron cooking pot with little legs and a tight fitting lid concave lid. It is indispensable if you are car camping, because you can use if for everything from stew to cornbread to, oh yeah, Dutch Oven Cherry Cobbler.
Now, if you want super quick and ridiculously easy, you might make this with 4 cans of Thank You Pie Filling, any flavor. But, if you have a little time and are celebrating a baseball win, you should make this with Farm Fresh Fruit, serve it with vanilla ice cream, and finish it off for breakfast.
Here’s what you need (and I apologize for all the parentheticals, but really, this is super easy and very flexible. You can’t mess it up):
For the filling:
4 cups tart cherries (or any fruit, peeled and prepared, as if for a pie)
3 T. cornstarch
2/3 C. sugar (more or less to taste, depending on the fruit)
¾ C. cherry juice (or any fruit juice, or water)
T. lemon juice (if you are working with a fruit that might brown)
For the topping: (I doubled this part because we wanted a lot of topping…)
2 ½ C. Bisquick
½ C. milk
2 T. melted butter
Equipment:
Dutch oven
Charcoal, hot and ready
Here’s what you do:
Prepare the charcoal. For me, this consists of yelling out the window, “Hey! Somebody start the charcoal!”
In a saucepan, whisk together the cornstarch and liquid. Add a cup or so of the fruit and cook over medium heat, until the cornstarch thickens and clears. Stir in the rest of the fruit and the sugar. Remove from heat. (You’ve just made better-than-canned pie filling! Good job.)
Mix together your bisquick, milk, and melted butter. You might have to add a tiny bit more milk to get the dough to the right consistency.
Grease the inside of the Dutch oven with butter. Pour in the pie filling. Drop spoonfuls of the biscuits on top. Put on the lid.
Find a spot away from small children. Put maybe 10-12 bricks of hot charcoal under the Dutch oven and 10-12 bricks on top.
Let it bake for 20 minutes. If you doubled the topping like I did, you may have to add another ten.
Serve with ice cream or whip cream or milk and Enjoy.
By the way, if you really want to try this particular recipe but you are lacking in the tart cherry department, we still have some available. To order a bucket (fresh from Michigan… no preservatives), call us or stop in by Thursday. We’ll be happy to help!
See you at the Market
