Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Today is brought to you by the color blue

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Ahhhhh, blueberries. How I maligned you in my youth, exclaiming you tasted like dusty old flowery cologne. Now my friend, you bring me cobbler, muffins and buckles that no other fruit can carry.

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My kids adore blueberries with a passion that only a little kid can carry without embarrassment. Before we planted the two blueberry bushes this year, we'd go blueberry picking at least once a season for the experience. Then we'd hit the farmer's market to stock up on freezing/eating/baking blueberries. Of course, since they love the berries so much I'm glad the owners playfully rejected my offers of weighing the kids instead of the nearly empty buckets when we were done. Now the kids pick in our backyard on a daily basis and we still stock up at the farmer's market. Much love to our North Carolina blueberry growers who put up with birds, and heavy watering then super meticulous picking just to bring us this beautiful fruit. In my little yearly stint at picking I realize that I'd have to sell mine like caviar to make any profit.

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I love having sweet berries in the freezer ready for a last minute batch of muffins or a much needed emergency pan of blueberry buckle. I think I used my last bag of frozen blueberries from last year this February so it was definitely a worthwhile investment. This year I hope to try something new - blueberry jam. I haven't made it before and haven't been one to buy it commercially prepared because well, it tastes like dusty old flowery cologne. But I'm hoping homemade will be better.

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This past weekend I was transforming the strawberries I froze last month into jam. I'll be posting that soon and what may well be the best use for jam in this household.

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