Food Friday: Summertime Blues

Blueberry season is starting to tumble by. It’s going to be nice to eat the local variety for a few weeks, instead of paying a huge amount of money (and increasing our carbon footprint) for the imported varieties. Blueberries are easy picking for delightful and simple summery meals; all day and all night. And you might even consider a weekend activity of picking your own. (For example: Lockbriar Farms https://www.lockbriarfarms.com)

Mr. Sanders starts most mornings with blueberries. Sometimes he just rinses them off in a wire strainer, and drops them into a bowl for easy munching. Or he mixes them with other berries and some yogurt. Sometimes he ladles a handful on top of a bowl of sticks and twigs and has a healthy, crunchy granola breakfast.

I like my blueberries as a special component: in piping hot, just-baked blueberry muffins, with puddles of melting Irish butter, and the Sunday papers. Like these: https://food52.com/recipes/36765-perfect-blueberry-streusel-muffins

Or in blueberry pancakes, with warm blueberry bursts in every mouthful. Nigel Slater has a divine recipe for blueberry French toast: https://www.theguardian.com/food/2021/may/09/nigel-slater-recipes-for-baked-peppers-and-blueberry-compote

Or, with a little planning, you can bake a breakfast cake. How perfect is cake for breakfast? A blueberry breakfast cake is the best way to start a day: https://amandascookin.com/blueberry-breakfast-cake/

Here is another unique take on serving blueberries – from the U.S. Highbush Blueberry Council, of all places: https://www.blueberrycouncil.org/blueberry-recipe/roasted-blueberry-toasts/ It is simple and summery, and the perfect finger food when you are struggling to make small talk again. There is nothing like chasing spilled blueberries across the back porch to liven up an awkward moment.

Perhaps the Blueberry Council’s blueberry mimosas will smooth over any of your rusty social skills: https://www.blueberrycouncil.org/blueberry-recipe/blueberry-mimosa/

This is a fascinating and thorough website for learning all things blueberry: https://www.blueberrycouncil.org The Blueberry Council must be composed of some very creative folks – never in a million years would I have thought to combine blueberries with Prosciutto ham on a pizza. I kid you not: https://blueberry.org/recipes/blueberry-prosciutto-and-goat-cheese-flatbread/

Blueberry season doesn’t last long – go forth and avail yourself of some summer flavors. Here is a fun fact: blueberries freeze in 4 minutes: https://farmflavor.com/lifestyle/food-for-thought/10-fun-facts-about-blueberries-infographic/ This is good to know, because we are in the process of storing and freezing 3 pints of blueberries – there is nothing like having an emergency stash.

“I may never be happy, but tonight I am content. Nothing more than an empty house, the warm hazy weariness from a day spent setting strawberry runners in the sun, a glass of cool sweet milk, and a shallow dish of blueberries bathed in cream. When one is so tired at the end of a day one must sleep, and at the next dawn there are more strawberry runners to set, and so one goes on living, near the earth. At times like this I’d call myself a fool to ask for more.”
-Sylvia Plath