Currently viewing the tag: "blueberries"
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Every three or four years we replenish the mulch beneath the plants in our blueberry patch. It’s important for several reasons.
We’ve had a lot of people ask us if we plan to have a blueberry U-pick this year and, sadly, the answer is no. Similar to many deciduous fruit trees, blueberries can enter into an alternate bearing cycle where they fruit heavily one year and very lightly the next. The sauce for this dish easily works with pork or even beef, but is especially good with all poultry. Duck has a reputation of being difficult-from greasy to rubbery to gamy to hard to cook. It really isn’t that hard to deal with as long as you don’t try to cook the duck whole. The breasts are easily done in a sauté pan that is transferred to the oven to finish. Legs should be cooked separately, either roasted, braised, or confited (slow cooked in their own fat). Depending on who you talk to, duck fat is considered to be between butter and olive oil as far as health benefits go. I recommend you look it up yourselves if you are curious. I will say it washes off hands a lot easier than any vegetable shortening I’ve ever used, and it tastes great. So, while cooking this recipe, have a little heat-proof container to put the fat you drain off into handy. Look for moulard or Pekin duck breasts for this recipe. These breasts are larger and ½ a full breast (1 side) will feed two.
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This sauce is meant to go with a carrot custard, but would be wonderful with duck, chicken, or pork. Use with panna cotta or other desserts as well. You can make it sweeter by adding sugar or agave to it, as the sugar in the recipe here is just enough to wake up certain flavors in the berries. You could add liqueur to the sauce to sweeten it as well*. This will also intensify the berry flavor. If you want a perfectly smooth sauce, pureé all the berries instead of three-quarters as called for in the recipe.
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Wow! We had the highest turnout ever for a u-pick in our Blueberry patch on Saturday. Fortunately the berry bushes were loaded with fruit and there was plenty for everyone to pick. It was great to see a lot of old and new faces of CSA members and others from our community out in the berry patch! We’re planning another u-pick for Saturday, June 4th.
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The blueberry bushes are in full swing! You’re invited to come out and pick your own blueberries on May 23rd, May 30th, or June 6th between 10 am and 2 pm. Please bring your own containers if possible. Friends and family are welcome too. No charge for entry. Blueberries cost $5/lb. You do not need to be a current CSA subscriber to come to the u-pick.
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If you get both blue and straw-berries, this is wonderful to make with them. The granola is easy to make, but you have to be patient when making it. The parfaits can be made ahead and brought out at the last minute.
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We’re bracing for the hot weather this week. It can be a struggle to make sure water gets to all the crops that need it when it gets this hot. We also try to do as much of the harvesting as possible early in the morning. This is most important for delicate vegetables like lettuce and for the strawberries, which will move quickly from ripe to rotten if they are too warm when they are picked.
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This salad could be a starter salad, or would be good as part of a lunch on a warm day with grilled chicken. At dinner, this would be a great way to bridge a salad and dessert course, or could come before the cheese in lieu of dessert. This is a very simple recipe, but that is so the flavors of each ingredient shines through. It may seem odd to use lettuce, but the faintly bitter and mineral-y flavor and the gentle crunch of the butter lettuce is a great foil to the sweetness and texture of the berries. If you wanted to add something to the salad, some chopped roasted almonds, pistachios, or hazelnuts would work with the sweet nutty flavor adding a bottom note to the ensemble.
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Although you can buy things called balsamic reductions, or balsamic condiment or glaze, all over the place now, a good many of them are made with inferior, or downright lousy, balsamic vinegar, or not even true balsamic vinegar. A lot of them have caramel, sugar, or other things added to them. Some of these things are for flavoring, others are to thicken.
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Makes about 4 to 5 (8 oz) half pints
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This dressing is for a green salad with blueberries, almonds, and mozzarella, but would work well with other things as well. Use with cold shrimp or chicken, or a salad of sliced radishes and green onions, slaws, or with fennel, among other things.
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For this salad, you want to use a softer lettuce such as a butter lettuce or green or red leaf. It works better with the blueberries, as something crunchier, like romaine, might overwhelm the berries texture and flavor. The dressing uses basil as the herb, but you could try mint instead. A little arugula would work well, but go lightly or the sharpness could drown out the other ingredients.
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We have four varieties of blueberries in our blueberry patch, Southmoon, O’Neal, Misty, and Jewel–which are supposed to ripen sequentially so that we could stagger our harvest over a longer season than if we just had one variety.
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The inspiration for this is in the classic fruit sauces for game, and is me playing in the savory kitchen with things normally found in the sweet side. Use this sauce on duck, pork, chicken, buffalo, or even beef. It will work great for any game as well. This recipe is the more refined version where the sauce is pureed and strained, with notes for a simpler, quicker, more rustic/casual version in the Chef’s Notes at the end.
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While researching blueberry vinegar I realized that there are pretty much two schools of thought. One school always cooks the berries and then strains it soon after, and the vinegar is almost always sweetened. Then there are those who don’t mind waiting, and are kind of purists. These are the ones that just mix berries and vinegar and proceed to wait a few days. One recipe even did both! Either way, it is really easy to make your own blueberry vinegar.
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This dressing requires blueberry vinegar, which can be bought or is easy to make and has many uses. To make it yourself, just check the recipe on the site. Although this recipe says “creamy”, it’s not very. There is just enough to give it that texture, and whipping it keeps the dressing light. This dressing is good on salads, in a slaw, and could be used to top chicken or a pork chop.
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