Smoked Ribs & Cherry Pie

So last sunday I decided to put my culinary skills to the test and use those cherries I picked at the vineyard in Door County, WI. I found a recipe online for a great cherry pie crust on simplyrecipes, and a cherry pie filling on allrecipes that turned out to be great with the few changes I made to make it my own. One problem I ran into was how to get the cherry pit out of the cherry without cutting the cherry in half and losing all the juice, or smushing it and making a mess of my kitchen walls. I looked on the internet and was given a few suggestions from a variety of people. One person said to take a clean nail and hammer it through a clean piece of wood and place the cherries on top of that and push the pit through. I found that to be very messy so I moved on. The most commen suggestion was to use a paper clip folded into an S shape and cut around the pit and then to pull it out, this also is a messy solution. So after research and brainstorming we came up with a great compromise to actually going out and buying an expensive cherry pitter that will also make me lose alot of cherry juice. What ended up working perfectly and didnt cost a thing or make a mess of the kitchen was a very small pair of needle nose pliers from the tool box in my garage normally used for small hobbies. I started by sticking them into the top of the cherry and grabbed the pit and pulled it back out of the top. There was no poking holes throught the cherry and no mess all over the kitchen, it was a total win win situation. It took me less than 45 minutes to do 4 cups of cherries, unlike some of the other ways that are painfully longer and messy. For dinner we made smoked ribs both spare ribs and baby back ribs. The reason for this is becasue we wanted to see which ones would turn out to be the most tender and tastiest with the smoking time that was allowed. I have allways been drawn to Baby Back ribs myself but to my surprise the Spare ribs turned out to be the best for smoking due to the high fat content. I did learn something from this experiment though, and thats not to smoke for longer than 7 hours when doing ribs or the outside will become tough, the meat however will still be red and juicy on the inside. To go with the ribs was homemade potato salad made the way my mother used to make it, but with my own personal touch of course. The recipe for the smoked ribs is a secret family recipe so this one I will not post, but Ill be glad to step you in the right direction as far as the cooking times and basic ingredients are concerned.

Baked Fresh Cherry Pie:  
                                             

1 recipe for a 9 inch double crust pie

4 tablespoons quick-cooking tapioca

1/8 teaspoon salt 1 cup white sugar

4 cups pitted tart cherries

1/4 teaspoon almond extract

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 tablespoons butter

1 tbsp melted butter (optional)

1 tbsp maple sugar (optional)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Place bottom crust in pie pan. Set top crust aside, covered. In a large mixing bowl combine tapioca, salt, sugar, cherries and extracts. Let stand 45 minutes.

Turn out into bottom crust and dot with butter. Cut top crust into 1/2 inch lines and lattice pie topping and fold each piece under and pinch.Place pie on a foil lined cookie sheet. Brush the top crust with the melted butter if your nit using a butter crust, sprinkle with Maple sugar on top.

Bake for 50 minutes until golden brown (cover with foil if pie crust begins to darken too fast on top)

Potato Salad

5 Red Potatoes peeled and cubed

5 hard boiled eggs

2 celery stalks

1 small sweet onion

2/4 cup mayonnaise

1/4 cup sandwich spread

1 tbsp sweet relish

1/4 tsp sugar

1tsp dijon mustard for color and to taste

1/4 tsp salt to taste

1/4 tsp pepper to taste

Paprika on top (optional)

Cut potatoes into 1/2 inch cubes and boil for 15-20 min or until tender but not soft, drain potatoes and run under cold water and set aside until coolChop 3 hard boiled eggs and add them to cooled potatoes.Dice celery and Onions and add them to potato and eggs

Stir in mayonnaise, sandwich spread, relish and mustard add sugar, salt and pepper to taste Cut the last 2 eggs in half and mix egg yolks with 2 tsp of mayonnaise to make deviled eggs, set on top of potato salad, sprinkle with paprikaLet stand in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour before serving