Gracious the summer flies, doesn’t it? I guess all seasons fly, but the way summer fruit zooms past sometimes takes my breath away. One year I was working on a particularly busy project and completely missed strawberries. That was a tragic year, because I’m always prattling on about waiting for those berries that are red all the way through and how we should never bother with the ones in the grocery store.
There’s a reason fruit, well, flies
A lot of vegetables can be planted in sequence, meaning seeds go in the earth every week or so, guaranteeing a steady stream of carrots, beets, greens and the like all season long. Perennial plants, like asparagus, have a shorter season. And a shorter season is the story with most fruit, which grow on trees and bushes. I think of blueberries like lilacs or tulips. There are early, middle and late varieties, thus extending the season. But still.
We still have a whisper left of blueberry season, depending on the variety your farmer grows, and I thought it would be fun to share a few recipes from the archives. First there’s my go-to recipe, Spiced blueberry sauce. I go to my neighbor’s farm Pleasant Hill Blueberry Farm, where they grow 40 acres of organic blueberries with their team of oxen Henry and Buck. John von Voorhees and his wife Joan Donaldson tell me that oxen bond with each other. When one of their previous team died (I can’t remember if it was Tolstoy or Leo), the other eventually had to be put down because he was heartsick. I buy ten pounds, then cook up batches and batches of this sauce to keep in the freezer all winter and serve on pancakes or ice cream.
Recently I posted again about my favorite jam, Blueberry basil preserves, and received a comment that my freezer jam option easily translates to processing and keeping in the pantry. If you’re a canner, this might be an option for you.
And if you’re looking for desserts…
American Spoon Food, a Michigan company that makes gorgeous preserves, makes a blueberry lime variety. I used the flavor combo in my Blueberry lime curd tart (top photo) and I have to say it’s a casual dessert that packs a beautiful punch. If you have less time, pull out the frozen puff pastry and toss together my Easy blueberry thyme galette.
Whatever you do, don’t miss a day of luscious summer fruit!
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