Cherry season is upon us! Hooray! I absolutely love cherries, and this year the farmer’s market has not disappointed. Big, crunchy, sweet, juicy cherries have abounded, and I’ve spent half my grocery budget just on cherries and organic strawberries. That’s okay. I’m pretty sure these constitute half my diet these days as well.

I used to hate dealing with cherries because of the stupid seeds that make them obnoxious to eat and all but impossible to cook with. Cherry pie? Are you kidding? Pit cups of cherries by hand? I’ll pass. Then I stumbled upon this fabulous little toy.

Cook’s Illustrated agrees that this is the best pitter out there. You load it with your cherries, close the top, and voila! Completely pitted cherries. And the best part, as you can see, is that the pitter catches the seeds and juices meaning no mess!

Cherry pie, here I come!

Here I go again, telling you how to spend your money. I am a first born and a bossy one at that, so I’m just living into my predestined personality profile. Do this, buy that. My husband loves being married to me.

Even if you aren’t an avid cook, you should own colored measuring spoons. Because I cook a lot, I have four sets of measuring spoons, and these are the ones I use the most often. When tossed amidst all the other junk in my kitchen drawer, I can easily spot the famous 1/4 teaspoon spice spoon (dark orange) or the tablespoon (bright green) without having to root around and check the lettering to make sure I’m not adding 1/2 tablespoon of salt to my recipe instead of the teaspoon that the recipe calls for.

I can’t remember where I picked up my particular spoons, but Amazon has a simliar set. Bummer that they don’t offer free shipping on these! Bed, Bath, and Beyond has something in the same vein as mine. I think mine are cooler, but hey. Not everyone can be as cool as me.

It’s strawberry season where I live and I’ve already spent a small fortune on flats of strawberries to use in strawberry eclairs, strawberry jam, and strawberry rhubarb pie. I have a friend who used to be a Pampered Chef seller and last year at her garage sale I picked up a strawberry huller. I wasn’t sure if I’d ever use it, but I’m a sucker for kitchen gadgets so this was a “must have” for my kitchen. This year, after processing loads of strawberries for all these fun desserts, I now know why they invented these things. I can easily hull buckets of strawberries in no time flat! I haven’t been able to find this exact huller on-line, but check around at all the various options Amazon has! Or, if you know someone that sells Pampered Chef, ask them to order one for you!