My morning starts between 6 and 7 am and Jamaican Me Crazy coffee is waiting for me thanks to the tall one. While enjoying the early morning quiet and coffee I check the world and local news. Next FB, do a little knitting or crocheting. Finally by 8 am it is get the breakfast going. Today it was over by 8:30. As I was cleaning up in came a fresh basket of summer squash and a great surprise. The rhubarb decided to take a late season spurt. There was enough for 2-1 gallon freezer bags full. While Dick was watering the garden, yes it is so dry and the corn's leaves are curled for lack of rain I washed and prepared the squash and rhubarb for the freezer. Then off to the blueberries that had the branches drooping with so many berries on them. As I was looking them over for bugs and missed stems I decided to make a Lemon Blueberry bread. I doubled the batch, one loaf for the freezer and one for now.
Did you know there is an art to picking blueberries, even raspberries and blackberries? First of all, start at the bottom of the bush and pick from the bottom of the berries not from the top. There is less chance of those little round jewels slipping from you fingers and hands to end up on the ground. Work your way up the bush, one branch at a time starting from the outside of the branch and working in. I only pick 3-5 berries at a time. The more I try to get the more I tend to drop, defeating the purpose of picking more at a time. Now that I think about it, it just might be 71 year old hands vs young ones. If you are near my age you probably notice dropping things seems to be the new norm. My theory, the more I drop the more exercise to bend over and pick stuff up......just a kind way of saying.......time is taking its toll on the old gal! But.......I can still do it so no bitching here 💕 Back to the blueberries and other berries you want to freeze. NEVER wash them. You just can't get them dry enough to put in bags for the freezer. Take a rest and go through the berries looking for leaves, stems........bugs or little worms. Once that is done you can either put them directly in freezer bags, into the frig to get them cold and then the freezer or you can lay them out on a baking sheet lined with parchment, put in the freezer. Once they have frozen solid then put them in the freezer bags. I have done it both ways and the put in freezer bags, frig and then freezer is my choice way.
Lemon/Blueberry Bread Recipe: I doubled it for two loaves but this is the single loaf version.
- 1/3 cup of melted butter (real butter)
- 1 cup of sugar
- 2 beaten large eggs
- 1/2 cup of milk
- 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp salt.......................................beat wet ingredients until fluffy add dry ingr.
Fold in 1 cup of fresh blueberries. I can see using blackberries and raspberries too :)
Grease and flour lightly a loaf pan, bake at 350 degrees for about 40 minutes or until the top springs back when pressed lightly with your finger. While still warm, drizzle with a glaze using 1 cup of confectioners sugar, TBSP of melted butter and a tsp or two of lemon juice. If needed add a little milk so you can drizzle it on.
As Bugs Bunny says........That's all folks! Remember Pass it on and enjoy the great outdoors!
