I know you missed this last week, didn’t you? Well, never fear, Fun Food Friday is back with……
The mighty blueberry! Full of vitamins and antioxidants, but most importantly, they taste really good! It is blueberry season here, the time of year when everyone is leaving the grocery store with a great big box of blueberries. Here are just a few things you can do with your blues:
– eat them, just as they are (obvious, I know, but it had to be said), even yummier mixed with raspberries or peaches
– throw them in a pan with some maple syrup and heat over low heat until bubbly and serve over pancakes or waffles or ice cream
– toss them into some yogurt with a little honey for a blueberry yogurt treat, add some granola and turn it into a parfait
– combine your berries with yogurt, milk and honey for a yummy blue smoothie, or use ice cream instead of yogurt for a beautifully coloured milkshake
– serve them with cottage cheese on a bed of lettuce or spinach, if you are really feeling adventurous sprinkle some toasted almonds or sunflower seeds on top
– wash them, throw them on a pan covered in wax paper and freeze them, then toss them in a freezer bag for the winter (this is where most of my box went)
– make a blueberry pie! The one pictured below is made with half cooked berries and half fresh. I love it when the fresh berries explode with flavour when you bite into them. I have been experimenting with whole wheat pie crusts and so far this is my favourite recipe. Serve it as is, or with a little scoop of ice cream.
What do you do with your blueberries? Leave a comment and share your ideas!
Recipe for Blueberry Pie:
1 baked pie crust (recipe follows)
4 cups fresh blueberries
1 Tbsp flour
1 Tbsp. butter
1 Tbsp. lemon juice
1/2 cup maple syrup (the real stuff, not Aunt Jemima)
Pour 2 cups of blueberries into the pie shell. Melt the butter in a pan on the stove and stir in the flour, lemon juice and maple syrup. Add the other two cups of berries and bring to a boil. Boil for a minute or two until the sauce looks thicker. If using big blueberries, the berries will pop open at this stage. Pour the cooked berries over the berries in the pie shell. Refrigerate until ready to eat.
Pie Crust
2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
2/3 cup unsalted butter, cold and cubed
1/2 tsp salt
1 Tbsp sugar
1 lge egg
1 1/2 tsp. vinegar
Ice water
Combine dry ingredients. Cut in butter using a pastry blender until mixture looks like crumbs. Add water to vinegar and egg to make 1/2 cup. Pour into bowl and mix with a fork until the dough sticks together. Knead a few times. Separate into two balls and refrigerate until ready to use. (you only need 1 ball for the blueberry tart – I rolled the second ball into a pie plate and froze it for future baking).
Roll out the dough and put into 8 – 9 inch pie plate. Trim and flute edges. Line with tin foil and fill with dried beans or pastry weights (you can cook it without, but your sides might shrink down the sides as it cooks). Bake at 425 for 8 minutes. Remove the tin foil and beans. Prick the bottom of the pastry. Bake another 5 minutes or so, until the pastry is nicely browned. Cool. (If you want fancy shapes on the top, cut them out of leftover pastry with a cookie cutter and bake until golden brown along with the pastry – watch them, they brown quickly!)
Just so you don’t start thinking I’m a master chef or anything, the pastry recipe is something I adapted from an old 1972 cookbook I discovered in the library on preserving foods. The blueberry pie is also an adaptation of something I found on the internet somewhere – I am really bad for printing recipes and not recording where I printed them from. (Kudos to whoever it was that first discovered these great food combinations!)
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