Friday's Food Tip: Cheer Up With Cherries!

Cherries are such a cheery fruit. Even the word "cherry" looks a lot like the word "cheery." It’s no wonder artist Mary Engelbreit uses cherries so often in her whimsical paintings and greeting cards. It’s hard to keep from smiling at her colorful cherry designs.



There are two main groups of cherries – tart cherries and sweet cherries. Tart cherries are sometimes called sour cherries or pie cherries. Usually, they are not sold fresh. Instead, you’ll find them canned or frozen. The most famous sweet cherry variety is the Bing cherry, but there are more than 1,000 varieties of sweet cherries. Rainier and Queen Anne are other popular sweet cherries you’ll want to try.

Research shows that Montmorency tart cherries may relieve the pain of arthritis and gout and help fight cancer and heart disease because tart cherries are bursting with antioxidants. But most of us don't eat cherries because they're good for us. We eat them because they taste so good!

If you’ve got the "almost-end-of-summer-blues" - cheer up with cherries! You'll find many mouth-watering cherry recipes at:

Home Cooking

Cherry Marketing Institute

Detroit Free Press – Cherry Recipes




EXTRA TIP: To enhance the flavor of cherries in baked goods, add 1/8 to 1/4 teaspoon of pure almond extract to the recipe. Wow! The intense cherry flavor will be something to cheer about!