Strawberries!!

First of the season. From the farmer's market. Devoured in less than 10 minutes. Love!!

Raspberry Oat Scones

I should have known better than to buy farmer's market raspberries the day after a rainy night, and in October no less. These were pretty watery and smelled great, but tasted... bland. Here's another way to use up less-than-perfect berries, courtesy of Joy The Baker. I had more raspberries than called for, about 1 cup, and used all of them in the recipe, resulting in a pretty wet dough but the scones still turned out well. And the recipe easily accommodated my love for spelt and whole wheat pastry flours too :)

Mmmm caramelized raspberry

Blueberry Crumb Bars

After a couple of weeks of gorging myself on fresh berries, I have turned back to baking and cooking with them. I adapted this from AllRecipes to include more whole grains, with whole wheat pastry flour, spelt flour, and ground almonds. I am rather partial to the combination of almonds, lemon and blueberries, so I added a bit of lemon zest and juice and some almond extract as well. Here is the recipe with my adaptations:

Ingredients

• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 3 cups total flour: I used 1/2 cup all purpose flour, 1/2 cup almond meal, 1 cup spelt flour, and 1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
• 1 cup cold butter (two sticks), cut into small pieces
• 1 egg
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• Zest and juice of 1 small lemon
• 4 cups fresh or frozen/thawed blueberries
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1 tablespoon cornstarch
• 1/4 teaspoon almond extract

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Grease a 9x13 inch pan.
2. In a medium bowl (or in a food processor if you are lazy like me) stir together 1 cup sugar, 3 cups flour, and baking powder, salt, and lemon juice. Blend in the butter and egg (use a pastry cutter or a fork if not using a food processor). Dough will be crumbly - don't overmix in the processor or you will end up with pie crust. Pat half of dough into the prepared pan.
3. In another bowl, stir together the sugar, cornstarch, lemon juice, and almond extract. Gently mix in the blueberries. Sprinkle the blueberry mixture evenly over the crust. Crumble remaining dough over the berry layer.
4. Bake in preheated oven for 45 minutes, or until top is slightly brown. Cool completely (it's hard to wait, I know) before cutting into squares. 
 

Mmmm, crumbles

 P.S. Don't these photos look nice? I had the opportunity to use a DSLR for the afternoon and did a lot of experimenting with aperture, shutter speed, and ISO. It is so nice to be able to use a higher ISO and still get good results - with my point-and-shoot, it's rare that I can even go to ISO 200 and get a decent shot. I am currently saving up for a new camera and am deciding whether to get a DSLR (pros: awesome photos, tons of manual controls, cons: big, bulky) or just a better point-and-shoot (pros: can carry it around all the time, cons: not nearly as many control options). Decisions, decisions. Look for more DSLR experiments in the future!

Huckleberries!

These are some of the best berries I have ever had. Before today, I had never had fresh huckleberries, I had only had huckleberry jam and some (quite excellent, by the way) Tillamook huckleberry ice cream.  Like the yellow raspberries, these were quickly devoured - they were just so cute and tiny, not to mention sweet, that we couldn't bear to leave any of them behind for another day. I was delighted to find purple-stained teeth, tongues and fingers afterward :)

Yellow Raspberries

Good thing I picked up two containers of these. Their flavor is milder than regular raspberries, but they are very refreshing. I am trying to decide what to do with the second container (the first having been devoured in fewer minutes than I have fingers).

Blueberry Buttermilk Gelato

No, I did not make this. I did, however, greatly enjoy it. Nostrana is a nice neighborhood place making wood-fired pizzas, fresh salads and vegetable dishes, and simple meals. And apparently very good gelato with seasonal flavors.

Blueberry Muffins

These are some fluffy-ass muffins. Heavy on the berries, and with some ground flax seed substituting for part of the flour, they are nearly healthy enough for me to enjoy them for breakfast rather than for dessert. I used this recipe from Simply Recipes, and I will definitely use it again. I may try adding some toasted pecans or walnuts, using whole wheat pastry flour and/or ground oats.

Blueberry Picking

Late-July blueberries from Sauvie Island are some of the best I have ever had. This year they are particularly good. We went to a quiet little farm early (ish) in the morning and picked to our hearts' content, a little over 6lbs of blueberries.

Come back for posts on what I am doing with all of these berries - that is, of course, if I can keep from just eating all of them straight out of the bucket.

Gooseberry-Rasperry Clafoutis

It started with some gooseberries.



I saw them at the farmer's market in such lovely shades of pink and green, even though I had no idea what to do with them I brought home a pint, along with some raspberries and strawberries. The strawberries were perfect as they were, but the raspberries were too tart for eating straight.

If the raspberries were tart, the gooseberries were like those tearjerker gumballs that made my eyes water when I ate them as a kid, mouth puckered and tongue shrinking back. The pink ones were sweeter than the green ones, but I decided the only thing to do was to make a clafoutis.

I used a recipe I saw at Honest Fare which was adapted from Julia Child. The recipe was just sweet enough that the tart berries still shone through but had a nice calm and custardy base to rest in. Really easy to make, too.