Fresh Sweet Cherry Crisp

Source: here

Ingredients:
for the filling:
about 2 pounds of fresh, sweet cherries, pitted (I read somewhere else that this is about 5-6 cups)
1/8-1/4 cup sugar (depending on sweetness of cherries)
2 Tablespoons tapioca
zest of 1/2 lemon (side note: I just bought a zester (microplane) while we were in Logan with a gift certificate from our wedding that was going to expire next month - LOVE it! - not sure how I lived without it till now!)
juice of 1/2 lemon
pinch of salt

for the topping:
3/4 cup brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup quick-cooking oats
1/3 cup butter, cold and diced
pinch of salt

Directions:
After pitting your cherries (this took the longest time of the whole process and my hands looked like a bloody mess when I was done - so wear an apron!), sprinkle the sugar, tapioca, lemon zest and juice, and salt over the cherries in a medium bowl and stir to coat.

In a separate bowl, add the topping ingredients and mix together using a pastry cutter or two knives or a fork until it resembles coarse pebbles.

Butter individual ramekins (about six 1-cup ramekins) or a 9x9 baking dish and spoon the cherry mixture into the bottom.  Top with the brown sugar/flour/oat mixture.  Bake at 375 degrees F for 27-35 minutes (mine were done at exactly 27 minutes) until golden brown on top and the cherry mixture is bubbling.  Serve warm with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

Notes:
Cherries were on sale this week at our local City Market, and I just couldn't help myself to a big bag.  Then I realized that I just couldn't eat that many cherries before they'd go bad, so I started looking for recipes to use them up.  I know normally cherry crisps and pies are made with the sour pie cherries, but I stumbled across this recipe for a sweet cherry crisp, so I knew I had to give it a try.  Oh my goodness, yum!  Seriously.  This stuff is goooood.  And luckily I have some left over for tonight!

I did cut this recipe in half because while I felt like there were a lot of cherries, I don't think I had quite enough for a full recipe.  So I used ~2 1/2 cups pitted cherries (I just cut them in half and pulled out the pits, though a pitter machine was sounding mighty tempting by the time I was done!), probably 1 1/2 Tablespoons sugar, and I dumped in the full amount of zest (half a lemon-worth).  I just couldn't help myself - it smelled SO good - but it definitely gave the crisp a very lemon flavor, which I thought was delicious, but if you don't want it too lemony, I'd stick with the recipe (so if you're halving it, too, just a quarter of a lemon-worth of zest).  Everything else I just cut in half.  Well, the butter was a little tricky - I think I used like 2 1/2 Tablespoons.  Anyway, it seems to be pretty forgiving.  My half-recipe fit perfectly in two 16-ounce ramekins.  I originally thought Gregg and I would each have one with a nice scoop of ice cream on top, but we decided to split one and save the other for later, which I think was a good idea because it was pretty rich.