Blueberries, Baby!

Blueberries were probably my favorite thing to pick this summer and definitely my favorite fruit to eat by the handful. Funny, 'cause I'm not normally a lover of blueberries. I like them, but you just never know if you're going to get a good batch. Not the case with U-Picking. They were all delicious and just right. The flavor was fantastic. I packed a cup full of them on many work days for breakfast or lunch and I could eat them plain and by the handful.

For recipes, I did my normal peruse of Smitten Kitchen and Bon Appetit (my go-to's this summer for recipe ideas with any specific ingredient) and came up with several that looked good. But, like the cherries, a large amount of our picked berries went straight into our mouths rather than recipes.

The first thing I made, just minutes after arriving home from the U-Pick farm, were SK's Blueberry Crumb Bars to take with us to a dinner party with friends that evening.

As usual, I did the crumble/crust in my food processor. (Couldn't live without that thing.) There was a delicious hint of lemon throughout the whole thing - in the crust and tossed with the berry layer.

The first two layers:

Crumbling on layer number three.

Baked and golden.

Served with a scoop of vanilla, these were very well received. ;)

This next recipe was posted in late June as I was collecting recipes for raspberries and blueberries in the month of July and I was super excited to try it:

Blueberry Yogurt Multigrain Pancakes from SK.

The batter was very thick and did require flattening a little with the back of a measuring cup. Again, lemon and blueberries paired very nicely together and I just used a couple tablespoons extra of both whole wheat and AP flour instead of buying the barley or rye flour she suggested. Once flattened on the griddle, I poked a bunch of blueberries into each pancake and flipped them.

Here's a view of the top side and under side of the pancakes.

I also followed a simple recipe from the July issue of Parenting magazine to make a blueberry compote for topping our pancakes (and later, ice cream). Simmer 1 cup berries with 3 tbsp water, 1/4 cup sugar and 1 tsp lemon juice for 10 minutes. Add another cup of berries and simmer 8 minutes more.

The pancakes were thick and delicious and I liked the extra blueberries and berry flavor of the compote on top.

Here's a dish of ice cream that my hubby had with a little leftover angel food cake (from a friend) and some blueberry compote.

Another suggestion from that Parenting magazine (article called "Blueberries 10 Ways") was to mix plain Greek yogurt with a drizzle of honey, some chopped walnuts and a handful of blueberries. The idea sounded nice and even appetizing so I made this for my breakfast one morning and I couldn't eat more than a couple bites. This confirmed my utter (gag-filled) hate for plain yogurt. I don't love yogurt in general but I use it a lot in cooking and I used to eat it daily as a snack when I needed snacks at work while pregnant/nursing. But I always bought the flavored varieties - usually Yoplait light - and couldn't even stomach plain yogurts mixed with my own chopped/pureed fruit. It's just too sour and yuck for me. So I may try this again with a vanilla yogurt... and maybe not Greek because I don't love the thickness of that stuff.

Next up: a recipe that I stayed up waaaaaaayyy too late making one night. It was one of those where you're not really sure what you're getting into until you're too far into it to stop. It wasn't a lot of actual effort... just a lot wait time between steps as this or that chilled/baked for 30-60 minutes. It's a Bon Appetit recipe and may have been a little exaggerated with the need for all that pretentious detail, but I followed it to a "T", because that's how I roll (NOT a risk-taker) and it WAS a reeeeaally good Blueberry Crumble Pie.

This was the first time I'd ever used butter in my crust (as opposed to shortening) and also the first time I'd ever chilled dough TWICE and baked a shell BEFORE filling with fruit and a crumb topping... only to bake again for ANOTHER hour and fifteen minutes. Holy Toledo, this recipe took way too long!

Take a wild guess if there was lemon in this. Did you guess "yes"? Then you're right.

Crumble topping.

The shell shrunk a bit from the first baking. Now it's getting filled and topped before baking again.

Here's a quick tip for tenting the edges of a pie crust to prevent them over-browning before baking is done. Maybe this is totally old hat and you'll laugh at me for thinking I'm sharing something new, but I learned it in one of my first cookbooks YEARS ago and I've always done it.

Fold a large piece of foil in quarters:

Cut a quarter circle out of the center folded corner:

Unfold to reveal an open circle center (mine is actually sort of oval-shaped):

Gently crease and fold a bit around edges of crust to allow the center of the pie to turn golden without over-browning the crust. Also a good idea to bake a fruit pie on top of a foil lined cookie sheet.

Done! I could hardly wait to eat it for dessert the next night.

It was HEAVENLY!

And a beautiful looking pie, if I do say so myself. Damn well better be after all that time!

We borrowed a couple blueberry themed books and also re-read our favorite Blueberries for Sal several times to go along with all our recipes.

So sad that berry seasons are coming to a close. Looking forward to the fall raspberry harvest in September (?) before calling it quits for the year.