Blueberry Picking 2014

Because we had gotten home a few days earlier than planned, I thought it might be a fun way to get our minds off of things for a little while and decided we needed to do our early blueberry picking. Every year we head to the Blueberry Ranch, an organic blueberry farm not too far from our house. Some years you can just walk to the picking bushes, but some years (like this one) you get to ride a wagon out to the bushes. We had a wonderful time, and picked about 11lbs. this year, that is actually fewer than normal because we still had blueberries in the freezer from last year.

This year I finally tried my hand at a blueberry pie. This one was super easy and I found the recipe here. I do have to admit though that I didn't make the crust from scratch. I have yet to find one that really works well for me, so this is a store bought crust, but from scratch filling. 

 The last 2 years now I have also made this Sour Cream Blueberry Ice Cream and Easy Blueberry jam. I love how they both turn out, and the entire family loves eating it!

We really love doing this! Just check out past years!!!

2013
2011
2009

Blueberries 2013

We love blueberries and blueberry picking! In fact, we go every year and have for many years already! There is a farm locally that does many varieties of organic blueberries. This year, we went the day after we got home from our epic vacation!

I didn't tell the kids where we were going, and had them get dressed. The best part is that they both dressed in blueberry colors!!! We picked only about 10 pounds this year, but after making blueberry muffins, coffee cakes, and ice cream, we have plenty left in the freezer for the rest of the year!

Banana Blueberry Muffins

I was busy moving things from the old freezer to the new freezer and realized that we had tons of frozen overly ripe bananas. I remembered this cookbook that my mom had gotten me for mother's day and thought to take a look. Lo and behold there was a recipe for Banana Blueberry Muffins, and I had everything I needed already in the house! The blueberries were the last ones left from blueberry picking a few weeks ago. The cookbook is The Top 100 recipes for a Healthy Lunchbox by Nicola Graimes. Some of the recipes are fantastic, but most of them are things that would either cost way too much to make on my little budget or are things that my kids would not touch with a ten foot pole. But i figured this was a nice safe one to try.

2 cups all-purpose flour
pinch of salt
1 tsp. baking powder
2/3 cup superfine sugar (I just used powdered sugar this time)
1/3 cup milk
2 eggs
5oz. unsalted butter, melted (this is about 10 tbsp.)
2 bananas, mashed
1 cup blueberries (Next time I make this I plan on using frozen ones.)

Heat the oven to 400 degrees. Place muffin liners in a muffin pan.

Sift flour, salt, and baking powder into a bowl, stir in the sugar, and mix together. Make a well in the center.

Put the milk, eggs, and butter in a pitcher and whisk until combined. Add to the bowl with the bananas, stir just to combine, then fold in the blueberries. Spoon into pan.

Bake 20 min until risen. Cool on a wire rack.

I had one shortly after they came out of the oven and they were fantastic! And then we all had them for breakfast this morning with a big glass of milk, or ice coffee depending on age ;-)

Blueberry Picking

One of the things we really wanted to do this year was go blueberry picking. We went 2 years ago, and wanted to go last year but the car broke down right at blueberry season. This time Adam was able to come with. We also opted to go later in the day, around 5, and that worked so much better. The weather had cooled a bit, and we got to pick in the shade. Now normally we would pick tons of fruit, but we were moving the next week and wouldn't have the freezer space that we use to have.  So this time around we only picked about 5 1/2 lbs. We have been eating them like crazy! A few times in blueberry pancakes, but mostly straight up fresh blueberries. I wanted to make some muffins, but we will have to wait and see. There is always next year, right?

D dumping her bucket into the bigger one

Blueberry Picking

The kids and I went blueberry picking at a great local organic farm here in town with my mom's group. My mom was able to come along too! What a blast!!! My kids have never been big blueberry eaters, but give them the ability to pull them off the tree to eat, and watch out! D was just shoveling handfuls into her mouth the entire time we were there. One of the other kids gave L a bucket, then he was so into picking and putting them into his bucket. I froze tons of them, so we have fresh berries all year. But I have made a few things with them too. I made blueberry yogurt Popsicles, muffins, and pancakes. D LOVED the pancakes. The pictures will show just how much she did!