Pantry Pie

The trouble with a biggish pantry is that it's too easy (for me) to fill up. With all sorts of items that I might need one day. With 2 or more of something I can't buy at Publix ... that I picked up in an Indian grocery store: chick pea or lentil or rice flours, tins of alphonso mangoes, lime pickle, poppadoms ... 3 bottles of my favorite olive oil that were on sale ... or whatever. There are items that have been there for a year ... or longer. I have been hanging on to a bottle of clam juice and a tin of clams for making a clam chowder for at least 3 years. That's ridiculous. Our freezers have a similar disease. I am terrible at labeling things with either the contents (left over soups for example) or the date. Every now and then I defrost something and occasionally I never figure out what it once was. One of my (everything but the) Kitchen Sink Soups maybe ... a curried something or another ... a completely unidentifiable ice cream.

It really is counter-intuitive of me to be doing this at the height of summer ... when there's an abundance of fresh fruits and vegetables, but this week I decided we are going to eat out of the fridge and the pantry and the freezer until they are all lean and I can scrub them all clean. Today I made a great start with an unexpectedly successful sour cherry custard tart made almost completely out of pantry items ... and 3 fresh HennyPenny eggs.

The pantry items:
An Arrowhead Mills Graham Cracker Crust

A can of pitted sour cherries and a can of sweetened condensed milk

HennyPenny are still pullets and their eggs are about 1 1/2 oz. each
2 regular eggs would be fine.

Set the oven to 350

Open both cans.
Strain the cherries carefully ... shake them to get as much of the juice out as possible but don't squeeze or press them ... and leave them in the sieve over the bowl to drain a little more.
Crack the eggs into a bowl and add half the can of sweetened condensed milk.
Whisk like crazy then add the cherry juice and whisk again.
It seemed very liquidy and I panicked momentarily - all for naught since it thickened nicely without any additional agents.
Sprinkle the cherries into the pie crust and pour over the cherry custard.
Cook for 40-50 minutes.
Test it by pressing with your finger - it should be soft and springy ... if there are any wet cracks leave it a little longer.
The custard was silky smooth, the crust still intact (not soggy) and the sour cherries deliciously bright in every bite.