Wild-eyed tomato futures

[zdashamber]

I stopped by Trader Joes because I was in the neighborhood and found there a pound of "sugar plum" tomatoes, half-inch diameter sweet tomatoes. Forgive me/ they were tasty/ so sweet/ and so red. Munching on them tonight, I was thinking that their taste reminded me of something... Pie cherries!

Could I, I wondered, make a cherry pie out of cherry tomatoes?

Homemade Cherry Pie Filling
4 cups pitted tart cherries
3-4 tbsp. cornstarch
3/4 to 1 cup cherry juice
1/2 tsp. almond extract (optional)
1 cup sugar

If frozen cherries are used, heat in saucepan until juice flows as cherries thaw. Drain before cherries are warm. If cherries are sugared, reduce sugar in recipe. Stir sugar & cornstarch together. Add small amounts of juice to make a paste. Stir into remaining juice, cook, stirring until sauce thickens. Stir in drained cherries and almond extract. Cool.

For pie:
Put cherry pie filling in pastry-lined pie pan. Put top crust on. Bake at 425° for 40-50 minutes, until pie is bubbling and brown.

This recipe may be used in place of canned pie filling for the following recipes.

Bah! Almond extract is used to make dry horrid white cookies taste like they might at least have the benefit of poisoning you so that you don't have to eat more of them! But the rest of the recipe sounds good for a one-to-one swap, without the juice that I'd leave out in any case as a pie oughtta have some substance to it goshdarnit.

Side note: Pie crust: Do you guys have a whirly-slicer? I have found them to be the most excellent thing ever for making pie crust. A few cranks and the Crisco/butter and icewater are evenly distributed through the flour in pea-sized segments that have not been abused for long minutes with a fork. Don't know what a whirly-slicer is? Neither do I, or else I'd link a picture. They're clear squat cylinders with a crank in the lid that connects to blades or eggwhippers inside. You can trivially take every part apart to wash separately. They're practically required for making salsa. Lord only knows what fool name their sellers call them by.

Anyway, I hope to report back triumphantly at some future point when I have time to attempt this. My backup plan if it turns out horrible: Add Bacon.