Blueberry Pie

Soooo now that it's time for pumpkin and pecan pie, I finally get around to showing you the blueberry pie I made this summer.

Truth be told, I wasn't so sure about showing you these pics.  After a few months working for a food magazine your own pictures look more like humble pie.  But I might as well finish off the last 3 or 4 posts I started so many months ago, such as this hand-picked blueberry pie.  You don't mind, right?

After picking buckets of blueberries, I knew a blueberry pie was in the works.  Both the blueberries and recipe come from Michigan.  While sitting around the table with our friend Gerry I copied down her recipe for blueberry pie.  Her secret, believe it or not, is a bit of cinnamon. You can't actually taste the cinnamon, but it definitely makes the berry flavor pop.

You should probably be making pumpkin pie right now (how about pumpkin with a gingerbread crust?).  But, if for some crazy reason, you're not into pumpkin pie and you have frozen blueberries leftover from the summer then go ahead and try this pie now.

Since we had so many pounds of berries I also whipped up a blueberry crisp based on this recipe.  The crumb topping has graham cracker crumbs and almonds in addition to your traditional oats.  I imagine it would work quite well on apple crisp too.

Better than fresh pie or a bubbling berry crisp are the friends who shared the recipes and  devoured forkfuls as we sat around the table.  No matter what season, holiday, or type of pie I am grateful for the gift of true friends.

Gerry's Blueberry Pie

recipe from a dear friend, Gerry Embrey

Ingredients:

1 pie pastry for a 9-inch double-crust pie (use your favorite recipe)

4-5 cups fresh blueberries 

3/4 -1 cup sugar

3 Tbsp all-purpose flour

dash salt

1/4 tsp cinnamon

Instructions:

* Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Roll out pastry for bottom crust and ease into a 9-inch glass pie plate.  

* In a large bowl combine blueberries, sugar, flour, salt and cinnamon. Toss until berries are evenly coated; pour mixture into crust.  

* Roll out top crust and place over berries; seal and flute edges. Cut slits (or shapes) in the center to allow steam to escape. Place pie plate on a baking sheet and bake 50-60 minutes or until crust is golden and fruit in center is bubbling. Let cool completely before serving.  

Food for Thought: "Many people will walk in and out of your life, but only true friends will leave footprints in your heart." -Eleanor Roosevelt 

Moving Cookies

I haven't disappeared, but I have been without internet for a few weeks.  Anyway, here's a post I started in the midst of moving.  Far too many things have crossed my mind since I set out to make these, but details don't really matter when you add peanut butter and chocolate chips to a thick and chewy oatmeal raisin cookie, do they?  I'm mostly unpacked and settled in now, but the following paragraphs are a taste of what I was up to when I should have been packing.......

Moving cookies. These are moving cookies. Otherwise known as Melissa has way to many things to be doing/packing/finishing up etc. but can't concentrate on any of them so she just ends up making cookies. Yeah, those kind of cookies.

Our first red flag is cookie justification.  Oh I could take a break and make cookies to give to people who are helping me pack and move. Thank you cookies. Goodbye cookies. Besides, I do have a recipe that needs testing and tweaking. 

The first few minutes of measuring and mixing are indeed a therapeutic zone-out to avoid the task at hand.  But then comes the dough.  Stress eating half a batch of dough and then barely having enough cookies left to give your helpers only heightens the tension and anxiety inside.  But it happens.   Happened.   More than once.   Ugh, will I ever learn?   Note to self: open jars of peanut butter and half-empty bags of chocolate chips are not helpful, especially after all that cookie dough.

It almost seems like an insult to exchange cookies for moving help, these don't come close to repaying all the help I've received.  THANK YOU to all the patient, strong, hard-working helpers.  I wish I had words to express how much I appreciate you.  I just don't know how to thank you, and so by default I make cookies.

Moving Cookies
recipe inspired and adapted from a conglomeration of too many things for me to tell you about right now

Ingredients:
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
2-1/2 cups uncooked quick-oats
1 cup raisins
1 cup chocolate chips
1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Instructions: (Danger! Do not proceed under stressful situations, you will just eat too much dough. Rapid and mindless consumption of dough, leftover ingredients and warm cookies will not help in the long run.)
* Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
* In a large bowl cream together butter, peanut butter, brown sugar and granulated sugar with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs and vanilla.
* In a small bowl combine flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon; stir into wet ingredients.  Mix in oats.  Add raisins, chocolate chips and walnuts; stir to combine.
* Scoop mounded tablespoonfuls of dough onto ungreased cookie sheets.  Flatten slightly with palm of hand.  Bake 9-10 minutes or until edges just begin to turn golden brown.  Let cool 1-2 minutes before transferring to wire cooling racks.

Food for Thought: The prudent see danger and take refuge, but the simple keep going and suffer for it. -Proverbs 27:12

Buckets (and buckets) of Blueberries

You should know by now that my favorite color is blue.  You may also be aware of my more than slight obsession with fresh fruit and the fact that I'm a sucker for a good deal.  Well it turns out if you combine something blue, something fruity and something that's a super good deal, I get more than a little carried away. And by a little I mean a lot.

On a recent trip to Michigan we stopped at a fruit farm along the shores of Lake Michigan.  To say there was an abundance of blueberries would be an understatement.  Rows of blueberry bushes stretched farther than I could see.  Each bush was absolutely loaded with bunches of ripe, juicy berries.

I guess I thought blueberries grew on short little bushes and that I would be bending over picking berry after berry one at a time.  Instead I barely had to move my hand and an entire cluster would fill it up.  As in, so big a handful I was dropping berries left and right. The bushes were taller than me and each one was loaded with little blue balls of bliss.  I loved the sound of the  plink, plink, plink in the bottom of my bucket, but it didn't last long.

To be perfectly honest a large portion of those handfuls never even made it to the bucket.  I actually had to stop and remind myself (several times) to put the berries in the bucket not just in my mouth.  They definitely should have weighed me before and after picking and charged for the difference.  I know I ate at least 4-5 pounds while picking.

Oh and get this, these fresh picked Michigan blueberries were only 75 cents a pound!  That's right $0.75/lb.  Those pint boxes in the grocery store weigh about 11 oz. and sell for around $2.48 a pop on an average day.  At 75 cents a pound we were getting the equivalent of a pint box for around 51 cents each.

Of course this "good deal factor" only heightened my frenzy to pick more, more, more.  And you can't even begin to factor in the fun and delight of picking the berries yourself.  Each bush seemed to have bigger, better and blue-er bunches, making it nearly impossible to stop picking.  Plus there were no bugs, no thorns and it was a great way to stretch after being in the car for 8 hours.

Forty pounds of blueberries later we got back in the car to continue our trip.  Yep, 40 pounds. I told you I got a little more than carried away.  We picked 7 bucket-fulls.  By the time we got to our destination we had 6 buckets and 2 very full tummies.

We picked with our hands, but this blueberry harvester was sitting near the shed.  The spokes inside rotate, shaking the bushes so that the berries fall off.  I never saw it in use, but I'm pretty sure the farmer was amused that I wanted to take a picture.

Lot's of other fresh fruit and produce was also for sale as well as a ton of no-one-wants-this-leftover-garage-sale-type items.  I fell for a vintage cookbook just like one my mom had growing up.  We also bought some fresh peaches and apricots.

Oh, and a few days later we stopped on way the home and did it all over again. The majority of these deliciously refreshing blue bubbles were eaten fresh by the handful.  A good portion were frozen, and I made a blueberry pie and blueberry crisp.  Those, however, will have to wait for another day.

I never once got sick of eating blueberries.  If I lived at a blueberry farm, I would never leave the fields.  The pictures don't even give you a hint at the whole experience, but here are a few more anyway...because blue + fruit = I got carried away....but in a good way I would repeat in a heartbeat.

Food for Thought: "One man gives freely yet gains even more; another withholds unduly yet comes to poverty. A generous man will prosper, he who refreshes others will himself be refreshed." -Proverbs 11:24-25

Flashback Friday: Camp Cookies

Flashback Friday: Revisiting a recipe from long ago

Camp cookies are a longstanding tradition at our house.  Most of my growing up years we went camping for several weeks each summer.  Whether it was a week at a state park or a 3 week road trip packing in as many national parks as possible, we made lots of memories.  No matter where we went these cookies were a part of each trip, which is exactly why we call them camp cookies.  I know, brilliant, right?

The best thing about these cookies is we were allowed to eat them for breakfast.  Loaded with oats, peanut butter and raisins + the fact that we were on vacation made these a perfectly acceptable breakfast.  Many an early morning my parents would carry us to the car still in our sleeping bags.  Breakfast on the road meant reaching over the backseat and into the trunk to find the ice cream pail full of camp cookies.  Of course they also doubled as dessert, hiking snacks and "are we there yet?" silencers.

Let's see, what else do you need to know about this tradition? True to our last minute form, a gigantic batch of these monster cookies found their way to the oven late into the night or in the wee hours of the morning before we left.  While the cookies baked there was plenty of time to cram things into the car, finish laundry and stuff it into suitcases and gather all the camping gear.

Oh, you also need to be a strategic spiller when you make these.  The M&M's are never measured, just dumped and spilled into the dough.  I usually tried to make sure my mom spilled in a few extra.  Depending on the length of our trip we would make up to 3 big batches. Penciled into our cookbook are measurements for a double and triple batch, which I've included in the recipe below.  I'm not sure we ever made just a single batch, they disappear too quickly.

Three week road trips definitely meant a triple batch, which barely fit into our trusty yellow mixing bowl.  When the bowl is literally so full the dough falls out, you had better eat some.  And trust me when I say this dough is seriously good.  It's probably a good thing cookie dough doesn't travel well or I'd never have had room for smores. Though the days of family camping trips are long past these camp cookies are still a family favorite.

Camp Cookies
adapted from an old church cookbook recipe submitted by Miriam Fokema Rogers to "Our Favorite Recipes, United Methodist Church of Kasson"

Ingredients: (double recipe, triple recipe)
1/2 cup butter, softened (1 c, 1-1/2 c)
1/2 cup peanut butter (1 c, 1-1/2 c)
1 cup granulated sugar (2 c, 3 c)
1 cup packed brown sugar (2 c, 3 c)
2 large eggs (4, 6)
1/4 cup milk (1/2 c, 3/4 c)
1 tsp vanilla (2 tsp, 1 Tbsp)
1-3/4 cup all-purpose flour (3-1/2 c, 5-1/4 c)
1 tsp baking soda (2 tsp, 1 Tbsp)
1/2 tsp salt (1 tsp, 1-1/2 tsp)
3 cups oats (6 c, 9 c) (I used 1-1/2 cups quick oats and 1-1/2 cups rolled oats....or whatever you have on hand at midnight the night before your camping trip)
1 cup peanuts (2 c, 3 c)
1 cup raisins  (2 c, 3 c)
1 cup candy coated chocolate pieces  (2 c, 3 c) (please don't measure here, just dump generously or spill in some extra.  We usually use both plain and peanut candy coated chocolate pieces...which doubles the spilling opportunities.)

Instructions: (if making a triple batch, use an extra large bowl)
* Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
* In a large bowl cream together butter, peanut butter, granulated sugar and brown sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs, milk and vanilla.
* In a separate bowl combine flour, baking soda and salt; stir into wet ingredients.  Mix in oats then stir in peanuts, raisins and candy coated chocolate pieces.
* Using a cookie scoop (or ice cream scoop for monster cookies), scoop dough onto ungreased baking sheets.  Bake 10-12 minutes (slightly longer for larger cookies) or until edges are golden brown and centers are almost (but not quite) set. Let stand 3 minutes before transferring to wire cooling racks.  When completely cool, store in airtight containers. (We always used 5-gallon ice cream pails for camping trips.)

Food for Thought: "Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul." -John Muir

Farmer's Market Finds

Hey! It's been a while hasn't it?  I'm smack dab in the middle of transition stage right now, but I'm back for a little bit.  Endings, beginnings, life is so full of changes and transitions.  Anyway, blogging just didn't seem to fit in the puzzle over the past few weeks.   I'm honestly not sure where my blogging will go from here.  The posts certainly won't be as frequent, but I don't quite want to stop all together either.

Oh, and I've been stress-baking a lot lately.  You know, when you have a million things to do and somehow end up doing none of them but just bake cookies instead.  Yeah, that kind of baking.

A few of those...occurrences, were captured on camera, but most were the non-recorded throw in some of this and that type thing.  I will have a few recipes for you in the near future, but for today we'll just go with some (rather careless) snapshots of this weekend's Farmer's Market Finds.  One of these days I'll bring my camera to the market instead of taking pictures of wilted produce that's sat in a hot car for an hour.  One of these days, but not today. 

Fresh green beans, which I prefer to eat raw.  Is that weird?  Whatever, that's just what my family does. 

Zucchini and yellow summer squash at 50 cents a piece.

I fell for this Swiss Chard at only $1 a bunch.  I wasn't really sure how I was going to use it, but the vibrant pink stalks were so pretty.

Mmmm, fresh basil smells so good.  Again, only $1 for a large bunch...much cheaper and more efficient than the $4+ plants I can only keep alive long enough to grow 6 leaves.

Crunchy cucumbers.  I made a batch of pickles yesterday, but really I just prefer to munch on the raw cucumbers.  One day I will like pickles, especially if I keep making them.  

This Russian Kale came from the garden of a generous friend.  She also shared her sweet corn and tomatoes.  Thanks!

Everything  but the green beans and cucumbers went into a super tasty quinoa dish based off of these Farmer's Market Skillet and Easy Summer Quinoa recipes from Iowa Girl Eats.  I've made this twice in the past two days and both times I inhaled it quicker than the click of a camera.  Don't skip the honey-lemon dressing.  Fresh basil is also a must.  And now that we've eaten our vegetables, I'd say it's time for some baked goods.  Cookies are coming up next.  

Food for Thought: "I have loved you, my people, with an everlasting love. With an unfailing love I have drawn you to myself." -Jeremiah 3:31 (NLT)

Mindful Monday: Making Time

Mindful Monday: On Monday's I'm going to share what's been on my mind. I by no means have any of this figured out, I'm just thinking out loud here.

I feel like I've had enough on my plate lately that I haven't had room for blogging.  But, I've also said many times here that I must make time to be thankful.  So, let's start the week out with another thankful list.

potential for change
sound advice
helpful input
handfuls of wild blackberries
cooler weather
the sound of treetops rustling in the breeze
the smell of a farm (ummm yeah, never thought I would be thankful for/miss that smell)
hills and valleys loaded with trees
vibrant bouquets at farmer's market
a friendly conversation
new books to read
time to play with a few recipes
a thoughtful phone call
abundant provision
laughter
a playful twinkle of the eye
learning life lessons
hopeful expectation
curiosity
clear communication
feeling an inner peace or stillness
support in decision making
fun dishes
sharing recipes
fresh air and sunshine

Food for Thought: "Incredible change happens in your life when you decide to take control of what you do have power over instead of craving control over what you don't." -Steve Maraboli

Heat-Wave Wednesday

It turns out when you don't have air conditioning the last thing you want to do is stand over the stove or turn on the oven.  I mean, I want to, and I have plenty of recipes to test just piling up.  But seriously, with a near 100 degree heat index I just don't have it in me to add any more heat.

Instead I'm enjoying cold, juicy melon, massive fresh salads and frozen berries stirred into yogurt.  Cereal and peanut butter have been a little too forefront as well.  Anyway, all that to say that I have no recipe for you today.  Cookies on Friday are still questionable, we shall see.  Hmm, cookie dough itself doesn't require an oven, but even that doesn't sound too appealing in the heat.

From sweet, juicy peaches to thirst-quenching melons and insanely sweet cherry tomatoes, I'm definitely enjoying the pure simplicity of what's in season.  And I'm enjoying it so much I haven't given the camera chance to bat an eye before I gobble it up.  So there you have it, no recipe and no pictures. I just felt like saying hello.  So, ummm, hello.  Okay, that is all, carry on with your day.


Food for Thought: "If you really want to eat, keep climbing. The fruits are on the top of the tree. Stretch you hands and keep stretching them. Success is on the top, keep going." -Israelmore Ayivor