Berry Cherry Pie

For the first time in Winnie history I made a pie just wingin' it by the seat of my pants. I have to say, I am happy with the results. Granted I didn't make my own crust, I bought the store-bought, bring-to-room-temp-and-unroll kind, but the filling I ad-libbed and took notes. Here's how it goes.

Berry Cherry Pie
1 recipe pastry for a 9-inch double crust pie
3 cups cherries, pitted**
1 cup mixed berries (raspberries, blueberries, blackberries, etc.)
1 cup sugar
1/3 cup white wine
1/4 cup flour
1 Tbsp milk

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Make pastry and refrigerate (or let pastry come to room temperature).
2. Macerate (basically, marinate) cherries in sugar, wine, flour for 1 hour. Drain and reserve liquid.
3. Roll out pastry shell and put in bottom of the pie dish. Pour in cherries, cover with the reserved liquid. Cover with top pastry shell. Make sure to cut slits to vent. Lattice top crust if preferred. Brush crust with milk.
4. Bake 30-35 mins until lightly browned. Cool before serving.

I've never actually had Cherry pie before so am not sure if the liquidness is common. If you prefer less liquidy filling I suggest simmering the reserved liquid over the stove to a more goopy mixture before adding it to the pie.

** Oh, P.S. I hand pitted my cherries because I had a whole bunch left over that weren't being eaten. From what I've heard you can buy pitted cherries by the can in any grocery store, or I believe there are pitting "machines" out there. Manually pitting my cherries was not the highlight of my day. By the end it looked like I had slaughtered something, my hands were so covered. I'm talking drippings down practically to my elbows drippings (alright, alright, maybe not all the way to my elbows....) But whaddya gonna do to save a buck or two (or twelve)? Hand pit cherries.
I had used a paring knife and halved the cherries. I read somewhere, of course after I had baked my pie, that using a plastic straw is a good way to pit cherries "by hand" and still keep them whole.

"I didn't have a cherry pitter, so my husband came up with a great, cheap solution after seeing me pitting the cherries with a knife (very tedious, and it halves the cherries which doesn't like as nice as whole cherries in the pie): plastic straws, like the kind you get at any fast food place. Hold the cherry in one hand and gently push the straw through the top of the cherry until you feel the pit. Gently push the pit through the bottom of the cherry. Do this over a bowl to catch the pits and the juice; put the pitted cherry in another bowl."

Voila!