blueberries

Blue, Blue, Blueberry Cornmeal Muffins

September 6, 2008 by Valerie 2 Comments

In an earlier post this summer, I raved about The Cornbread Gospels by Crescent Dragonwagon (that name always makes me smile) and the two versions of cornbread salad we had tried out, both receiving enthusiastic reviews. Well, since then, it’s been hard for me to NOT bake and cook without cornmeal. Cornmeal breads, muffins, pancakes, etc. And my latest favorite muffin is her recipe for Blue, Blue Blueberry Muffins. All the blue is the result of using blue cornmeal and serving the muffins with a Blueberry-Cream Cheese-Honey Butter. Okay, have I your attention now? Are you hooked? Shall I start reeling you in???

These are unbelievably tender and moist, and the main spice in the recipe, nutmeg, sets off the flavor of the blueberries and the cornmeal beautifully. (I am somewhat biased—most dishes are considered incomplete without at least a little nutmeg thrown in). And when you top the warm muffins with the meltingly delicious blueberry butter—moment of silence, please.

Now, if you are not able to find blue cornmeal, yellow is fine, and you end up with another lovely version, just less blue! Blue cornmeal is not easily accessible up here where I live in northern MI, so I’ve made these frequently with yellow cornmeal, as you can see here—

So if you have stockpiled a good amount of end-of-the-summer blueberries AND you are a lover of corn AND need some muffins to warm you up on the crisp mornings arriving with the turn of the season, this recipe is for you. One note: When I made these muffins, I did notice that it only made 12 of what I would call standard sized muffins—if I had tried to make 18 muffins out of this, they would have definitely been on the small side.

Blue, Blue Blueberry Corn Muffins

From The Cornbread Gospels by Crescent Dragonwagon

Vegetable Oil cooking spray or muffin papers

1 2/3 c. unbleached white flour, divided

1/3 c. stone-ground blue cornmeal

½ t. salt

1 T. baking powder

½ t. baking soda

1/3 cup butter, at room temperature

½ c. sugar

1 egg

½ t. pure vanilla extract

¼ t. freshly grated nutmeg

1 cup low-fat milk, plain or vanilla

Soy milk, or a combination (see Note)

1 cup blueberries

½ c. chopped toasted walnuts (optional)

1. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. Spray 18 standard-size or 12 large muffin-tin

cups with oil, or line the cups with papers.

2. Stir together the flour, blue cornmeal, salt, baking powder, and baking soda into a large bowl. Set aside.

3. Cream together the butter and sugar in a small bowl, then beat in the egg, vanilla and nutmeg.

4. Stir the creamed mixture into the dry mixture along with the milk, until not quite blended. Then add the blueberries and the walnuts, if using, with just a couple of strokes, so the mixture is just barely combined. Spoon into the prepared muffin cups.

5. Bake until the edges of the muffins are golden brown and the caps are rounded and also golden, 22 to 27 minutes. Let cool for just a few minutes, then remove from the cups. Serve warm with blueberry-cream cheese-honey butter if you like.

Filed Under: Bread, Breakfast Foods, Valerie Tagged With: blueberries, Cornbread Gospels, Cornmeal, cream cheese, Crescent Dragonwagon, honey, muffins, Valerie

Blueberry Jam

July 30, 2008 by Rebecca 1 Comment

In yesterday’s post I offered the world’s easiest blueberry preservation technique- freezing. I also promised to provide an overview on how to make blueberry jam. I’m a gal of my word, so as promised, I put together a primer on making and canning blueberry jam. First, a couple words of caution:

This recipe is specifically for blueberries. While the principles of canning remain the same if you’re using other fruits, you cannot switch out blueberries for something else in the preparation of the recipe. If you have other fruit, use a recipe tailored for that fruit so you can maintain the proper levels of acidity and sugar to preserve your jam best.
Have your mise en place ready to go. (Repetitively redundant, I know…) Think of making this like you would a stir-fry. If you try to measure things out and run around to find implements you’ll run the risk of ruining it. This is not a walk-away-and-do-other-things project.
Once you make your own jam you will be very, very bitter if you have to purchase jam at the store. The flavor and cost of homemade jam will convert you powerfully fast!

Onto business…

Blueberry Jam Primer and Recipe

Ingredients for approximately 6 cups of jam:

4 cups sugar, measured into a mixing bowl
6 cups whole, clean, very fresh blueberries
1 package powdered pectin (not liquid!)

Sugar, blueberries and pectin for jam.

Hardware Needed for Canning 6 Cups of Jam:

3 sterilized pint jars (for tips on sterilizing jars, click here!)
1 or 2 extra sterlized half pint jars (just in case you have a bit of extra)
Sterilized rings in the proper size for each jar (regular or wide mouth)
New lids in the proper size for each jar (regular or wide mouth)
Large stainless steel or other non-reactive* stockpot (not pictured below)
Long handled wooden or stainless steel spoon (not pictured below)
A timer or a clock with a minute hand (not pictured below- and don’t laugh. I know people who are not in possession of these things on purpose!)

*I’m going to keep using the phrase “non-reactive” during canning season. Basically, all you need to really know about this is that you should use stainless steel, glass or enamelware. Anything else (aluminum, etc…) can chemically react to the food and create off-flavors during the process of preserving food. That is most assuredly to be avoided.

Necessary gear for canning jam.

Helpful Gear (that is not strictly necessary) for Canning Jam:

A large boiling water canner
Canning tongs
Canning funnel
Silicone hot mitts
Potato Masher
Stainless steel or other non-reactive ladle

Boiling water canner, canning tongs and funnel, silicone hot mitts, potato masher and ladle. Canning made easy!

The Process:

Before you start smashing berries and boiling stuff like the witches in Macbeth, you need to have your jars, lids and rims ready to go.

Have your jars prepared so that when the jam is done you can fill them immediately!

Pour blueberries into a large bowl. Please, please don’t use a small bowl: You’ll be chasing blueberries around the countertop and floor if you do. Using a potato masher or the bottom of a drinking glass or jar, smash the daylights out of the blueberries. If you’re in a hurry, you can pulse the berries in a food processor- but don’t purée them. Jam is supposed to have bits of fruit in it!

How your berries look while mashing.

How your berries look when ready to continue to the next step… Smashing, no?

Pour your 4 cups of smashed blueberries- you did measure again, didn’t you?- into a large non-reactive stockpot.
Sprinkle powdered pectin over the surface of the blueberries.

Yes, I said sprinkle but this picture shows me dumping the pectin. I am not so coordinated that I can gracefully sprinkle pectin and take a picture simultaneously.

Stir the pectin into the fruit thoroughly.

If you dump it in, don’t panic. You’ll just have to do more stirring.

Bring the mixture to a boil over high heat, stirring constantly. Do not walk away. Burned blueberries smell very, very bad.
When mixture reaches a full rolling boil*, add the sugar all at once and quickly stir it in completely.

*A full rolling boil is when it does not stop boiling even when stirred- which you’re supposed to be doing anyway, right?

Do not step away from the pan. I repeat. Do not step away from the pan. Keep stirring!

Bring back to a full rolling boil. As soon as it reaches the full boil, begin timing. Allow to boil hard for EXACTLY 1 MINUTE! Do not overcook. Kill the heat as soon as the timer goes off!
As soon as you have removed the stockpot from the heat, begin ladling (or scooping by whatever sterile means are at your disposal) the jam into the jars. And for the love of all that is holy- this stuff is HOT and it HURTS if you splash it on your bare skin so be careful!
Using a clean, damp paper towel, wipe the rims of the jars clean. You don’t want gunk of the rims because that increases the risk of spoilage.

These jars are filled, wiped clean and ready to be lidded and processed.

Place a lid, seal side down, on top of each clean jar. Add a ring and screw it into place. Don’t overtighten!
Put all jars into the empty canner (or other deep pot with a fitted lid) and fill with water to completely cover all jars.
Place lid on pot and bring to a full rolling boil. When water reaches a full rolling boil*, start timer for 10 minutes**.

*Again with the full rolling boil. It’s important!

Doesn’t this look like a Macbeth moment? You know- “When the hurly burly’s done. When the battle’s lost and won,” and whatnot?

**If you’re using a larger size jar, adjust processing time accordingly. Quarts process for 15 minutes.

When jars have processed for the appropriate amount of time, carefully remove all jars to a cooling rack.

Can you tell I have wicked hard water?

All that remains is to remove the rings carefully, wipe down the jars with a damp cloth, and check your seals.
If you have any seals that failed, simply put those jars into the fridge to use right away. All sealed jars can be stored in a single layer on a shelf without their rings!

Voila y voila! Blueberry jam!

I hope I’ve convinced you that it’s worth your time and effort to make this. …But just in case I haven’t convinced you yet, here are a couple other great reasons to try it:

It goes without saying that this jam is out of this world on toast but don’t stop there. Put a couple spoonfuls in a bowl and mash about with a fork. Then spoon that softened jam over vanilla ice cream (are you sensing the ice-cream-for-life-theme here?)
Throw a quarter cup into a blender with plain yogurt, frozen berries and purée for a fantastic blueberry smoothie.
Glaze roasted pork with softened blueberry jam.

You can do so much with this stuff. Get creative!

Filed Under: Canning, Instructional, Rebecca, Recipes, Stretching your dollars Tagged With: blueberries, blueberry jam, Canning, Food Preservation

Blueberry Crisp and How to Freeze Blueberries

July 29, 2008 by Rebecca 2 Comments

“One berry, two berry, pick me a blueberry.

Hat berry, shoe berry in my canoeberry.

Under the bridge and over the dam.

Looking for berries. Berries for jam!”

from ‘Jamberry’ by Bruce Degen

It’s blueberry season! Find a local U-Pick place, grab your large kitchen bowls and get yourself some blue gold.

Blueberries are serious power food. Not only are they delicious, but they are very low on the glycemic index, which makes it wonderful for folks battling blood sugar problems or struggling with their weight. They’re jam (ha!) packed with incredibly high levels of antioxidants, flavanoids, fiber, Vitamin C and folic acid. In lab tests, blueberries have been shown to reduce the risk of cancer, heart disease, ill effects of aging (um, what are good effects of aging?), vision loss, and urinary tract infections. They’ve also been proven to make you more attractive. (Not really, just making sure you’re paying attention!)

Adding to blueberries’ charms is the fact that they’re super simple to prepare. You don’t have to peel, pit, chop or core them.

And since this is my birthday week -because I stretch my birthday festivities out to cover an entire week*- I decided to haul the kids out to the blueberry patch for the day. While the kids covered themselves in SPF 4000, I pulled a gallon of water, sliced a loaf of bread for power-munching with berries, grabbed a bag of chips and a container of dip and slid the lot into our cooler. I hauled the cooler and every large mixing bowl I own to the van and we hit the road.

*As I have officially been 29 for a few years now, I feel the need to make my birthdays a little more exciting. Therefore, I am extending the party (and demands for special treatment) by a couple days in either direction. I think that’s okay since I’m the only girl around here…

I adore blueberry picking. It’s by far the easiest berry to pick and preserve. This, combined with the obvious health benefits and the fact that it’s my favorite berry to eat, makes us prodigious pickers.

Putting up blueberries is one of our big summer projects around here. We usually eat our way through three or four batches of blueberry jam and several gallon-size freezer bags of frozen blueberries per year. Not surprisingly, the quantity we consume is steadily growing. With five little boys I expect that I’m going to have to pick more every year until they are grown and they move away. I’m already drawing close to needing a separate chest freezer just for fruit. Most years we pop about 45 pounds of blueberries into the freezer and process about 20 pounds of berries into blueberry jam. (See tomorrow’s post for a primer on Blueberry jam making and processing!)

Since we do this every year, we’ve had a chance to establish a good many traditions to go along with the picking. We dust off our copy of ‘Jamberry’ every year and read it before hitting the patch for the first time. We make sure we have a picnic lunch and a great deal of cold water to keep us going. And, most importantly, the first berry we touch is not with our hands. When we get to the blueberry bushes, our first berry needs to be picked with our teeth. It doesn’t get any fresher than that! Have you ever eaten a blueberry still warm from resting on the bush in the sun? If not, I highly recommend trying it. It seriously re-arranges your outlook on life for the better.

This year we had to try a new patch since the one we’ve picked at for the last 10 years was stripped clean in only two weeks. We tried out “Blueberry Hill” in Franklinville, NY. This is an unoffically organic patch. It is obvious that they’re putting a great deal of effort into their work. Good stuff! And mercy, but it was cheap. They charged $0.75 a pound! Holy wuh! Unless you’re growing them yourself, or you have a relative who lets you pick for free you cannot beat that! We managed to come away with a little more than 21 pounds. Not enough, but it’s a good start.

Here are a couple things that can make blueberry picking easier for the first timer in the patch.

Do not pick green or white berries. Blueberries do not ripen after picking.
A ripe berry will come easily off the bush.
A ripe berry will have a deep purple or blackish blue color and a waxy looking coating- this is a natural protection for the berry and is desirable.
The size of the berry does not matter. If it has a deep color and comes easily from the bush it is ripe!
Ripe blueberries are plump. Don’t bother with the ones that are wrinkled- the birds will love those.
Move branches and leaves to check the undersides. Often those are the places with the largest amounts of ripe berries.
Cut the top off of a gallon milk container, leaving the handle intact. Use a rope or scarf to tie the jug around your waist so you can use two hands while picking.
The blueberries are perishable and sensitive to the sun. Go straight home after picking and don’t leave your berries in direct sun. Put them in the fridge until you decide what you’ll be doing with them.

So this brings me to what to do with the bounty.

I usually get the easiest thing out of the way first and freeze vast quantities of berries.

If you pick at a blueberry patch that doesn’t spray with chemicals, three quarters of the work is already done. You don’t need to wash the blueberries because they have not been in contact with anything that needs to be removed from them. Blueberries naturally create their own protective covering (the waxy coating present to a greater or lesser degree on all ripe berries) that help prevent spoilage. It is absolutely unnecessary to wash them before freezing if they come from a no-spray patch.

Worried about bugs? Don’t be. Any bug left in with your blueberries isn’t going to last 10 minutes in the freezer. Using the method described below gives you a chance to weed out any frozen critters before packaging for long term storage.

How to Freeze Blueberries

If your berries are from a patch where they spray pesticides, or if you’re unsure of the berries origins, you’ll want to carefully wash them in cool water and allow them to dry completely before proceeding to the first step.

Spread berries loosely on a clean, dry rimmed sheet pan or roasting pan.
Place pan in freezer for about 1 hour, or until hardened.
Transfer frozen berries quickly, with minimal touching, to gallon or quart sized freezer bags.
Put bags immediately into a freezer that is at about 0°F.

That’s it! Could it be any easier? Having frozen blueberries is like having money in the bank. You can use them straight from the freezer almost interchangeably with fresh blueberries. Toss a handful into buttermilk pancakes, waffles, muffins, crumb cake, etc… Throw some on your breakfast cereal, lunch salad or evening bowl of vanilla ice cream. (What? You don’t have an evening bowl of ice cream? You probably should. Life is mighty fine when you do!)

Here’s a recipe for a wondrously simple old-fashioned blueberry crisp that you can make with either fresh or frozen blueberries. If you’re using frozen blueberries, don’t worry about thawing them first. Just add a few minutes to the cooking time. And don’t skimp on the cinnamon. That’s another power food… but that’s another post!

This crisp is simply delicious served alone straight from the pan, but it’s simply decadent served with vanilla ice cream or frozen custard.

Blueberry Crisp

Ingredients:

3 cups fresh or frozen blueberries
2 Tablespoons plus 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
3 Tablespoons light brown sugar
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
4 Tablespoons cold butter

Spray a 8″ oven-safe baking dish with non-stick cooking spray. Set aside and preheat oven to 350°F.

Scatter blueberries evenly into prepared baking dish. In a separate bowl, combine brown sugar, cinnamon and remaining flour and use two butter knifes to cut butter into the mixture until crumbly. Sprinkle the flour/butter mixture evenly over the berries.

Bake for 25-30 minutes (or more for frozen berries) or until the berries are bubbly and the topping is golden brown and delicious.