That blueberry is jammin'!

Blueberry jam?  Can't quite say that's what I'd make with fresh blueberries... or eat them by the handful.  Whether fresh blueberries are sweet or not, I prefer them with or in something else.  Some people like to eat them with their cereal or in some yogurt.  Better yet bake them in some blueberry muffins or cake.  I'm not talking about buying a blueberry muffin mix!  You'll be lucky if those are even real blueberries in the mix.  And that, my folks, is a whole other topic: blueberry flavored foods....

But might you ask where I got these blueberries I have from?  

Why I picked them myself!

This past Saturday, July 30th, I went blueberry picking with my sister Julie at Blueberry Field Farm in Centerburg, OH.  I first read about this while looking at the event page on www.slowfoodcolumbus.org and thought it would be a great opportunity for me.

While at the farm that day, we got to learn about bees!

These were the very bee hives on the farm

where they harvested honey from as well

After the small lecture on bees, we were off to pick blueberries!

Unfortunately, it was slim pickin's....

But in the end, my sister and I ended up with 1 lbs combined 

Later that afternoon...I volunteered at the Hills Foodie Fair via Local Matters pouring beer from Columbus brewery!

The following day, Monday, I decided to make something with the blueberries I picked.  If I wasn't going to eat them in yogurt with some, let's say, granola, then baking them in something was my next option.  When you think of blueberries, you think of blueberry muffins!  Great idea... but what about Blueberry Lemon Pound Cake?!  I use to work at Simply Fresh to You in Charlotte, NC where one of the owners made the best Blueberry Lemon pound cake I have ever tasted! So, I thought I'd give it a try myself and see if mine is just as good ;)

Here's the recipe I choose to use:

                    Courtesy of FoodNetwork.com

Ingredients

Batter:

• 16 tablespoons (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 2 cups sugar
• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 4 large eggs
• 3 egg yolks
• 1/2 cup buttermilk
• 1 tablespoon grated lemon zest
• 1 tablespoon strained lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Here's what I did...(I didnt follow the exact directions, of course!)

First: Mix together the dry ingredients- flour & baking powder...and set aside!

Second: mix the wet ingredients together- buttermilk, lemon juice and zest...set aside!

Third: Beat the butter until creamed, then add the sugar and beat until light and fluffy!  Then add the eggs and egg yolks and beat until fluffy.

                    

Fourth: Add half the dry ingredients, mix on slow speed, alternating with half the buttermilk mixture and the rest of the dry ingredients, mixing until well combined.  Add 1 tablespoon of flour to the blueberries, mix, then fold into batter!

                      

Fifth and Final: Pour batter into prepared pan and bake in a preheated 325 degrees oven, for an hour!

Once the cake comes out of the oven, let it cool on a wire rack.

Then enjoy!

Tame that wild cherry, fool!

Cherries...you can't help but love them when they are in season.  You go to the grocery store and it looks as if they have taken over the place.  Bag after bag, these ruby red jewels will always catch your eye and aside from the price, you'd be a fool not to grab a bag...or two.

Sure these little suckers are fun to pop in your mouth and enjoy all while being careful to work around the pit.  Is that all they are meant for though?  Of course not!  So don't just wash them and leave them there.  Make something with them!  Find different ways to enjoy them beyond eating them by the handful.

As seen above: Bing Cherries come mostly from Washington as for these cherries grow best in a wet climate. They are specially cultivated to be sold in fresh markets and are the preferred eat-fresh varietal.

Maybe you prefer sour, tart cherries that are good for baking such as Montmorency cherries.  Many years ago, such a cherry tree thrived in our back yard...

Planted by my dad, specially for my mom, so she could pick cherries every summer and (correction) do nothing as they were even too sour, apparently, to bake with. 

Sadly, today, that same tree is nothing but an over sized twig sticking up from the ground after it was consumed by a tree virus and died.

Now onward... the bag of Bing cherries I recently purchased: I was determined to make something good with.  I couldn't help but be super excited every time I went to the grocery and saw how cheap they were. With no hesitation, I purchased yet another bag.  Once I got them home, what I was going to make sure came to mind quick: a cherry sauce to pair with fish.  Could they possibly go together?  I thought so.  I had the flavor complex in mind but figuring out the recipe was my next test.

I wanted to pair the cherry sauce with some kind of white fish. If the colors wouldn't be wow, then the flavors sure would be.  Usually the rule of thumb is white with white.  i.e. white fish, white wine.  In this case... white fish and lemon.  I wanted to work lemon into the sauce as well.

I was off on a mad hunt, searching for a recipe that met with the standards of the ingredients I was using.  I found nothing to my satisfaction.  Everything used dry cherries, red wine and heavy juices or some kind of simple syrups.  They weren't bad recipes considering what they were being made for such as duck.  

Instead I went out on a limb to create my own recipe.

    That first consisted of pitting the cherries...

              No cherry pitter...sure makes for a mess.

                                                    ...But such a beautiful mess   

Once pitted and sliced, in a bowl they went-

Lemon-Cherry Sauce

   

2 tablespoons butter

1 to 2 shallots, finely minced 

1/2 cup Bing Cherries, pitted and sliced in half

zest and juice of 1 lemon

1/4 cup white wine (or dry sherry)

1/4 cup water

2 tablespoons sugar

Pinch of ground cloves

1.  In a small saucepan over medium heat, add butter and shallot and sweat for 3-5 minutes.  Add the cherries and cook 5 minutes.

2. Add lemon juice, zest, sugar, wine, water and cloves to the cherry mixture.  Over med-low, simmer for 10-15 minutes until the sauce is syrupy consistency and the cherries are soft.

3. Remove from heat and serve.

As observed, this is a simple recipe. Though when I made this actual recipe I did not keep exact time, so everything is an estimate.  When I did make this, however, I used sherry because that was all that was in the house and I used a white onion as well.  The pinch of cloves in the end was that little something extra I decided to add, giving it the exact flavor I was looking for.

I used grouper for this recipe.  I baked it in the oven for 10 minutes with olive oil, salt, pepper and a pinch of allspice.  It was delicious...

  

      

    

Zucchini...and lots of it.

Thursday July 21:
Whether or not you live on a farm doesn't mean you can't plant yourself a garden.  Before I was ever born, my father planted his own garden in the very backyard I look out at as I sit writing this blog.  He did everything himself from tilling to planting each seed by hand and nurturing them until the plants grew all big and healthy.

Once I finally came into this great world, my first  taste of garden-fresh produce came to me at a young age with me, my sisters and my grandmother at her house just 10 minutes away.  I always knew the food you plant is the best food you'll ever taste.

As I grew up, my father and I took on the task every summer of planting a garden together.  I helped him where I could with purchasing the plants from our local nursery Stradders right down to harvesting the vegetables once they came about and cooking up something amazing with them.  As time went on and I grew up, we still continued this summer tradition until I left for college. Once I left for college, our garden became one with the grass.  Now that my grandmother is living in a nursing home and my sisters moved into her house to revive it some, my oldest sister, Julie, has taken on the task of growing a garden where my grandparents once did.  Now that it is mid summer, her plants are all full with veggies to pick and cook with.  One plant she grew of course was zucchini.  Us Italians can't have a garden with out zucchini in it!  The only down side about zucchini is how rapidly the vegetable grows.  You pick a few one day and the next day the same amount is there yet again.

Zucchini is a versatile vegetable to cook with; it has many uses: sweet and savory.  Having such an abundance of zucchini at my disposal, finding different dishes to make may almost be as difficult as putting away the laundry, let alone folding it.  Zucchini isn't just another vegetable to cut up and toss in a saute pan, simply with some salt and pepper.  It is great in fritatas, bread, fritters and even cupcakes!  The uses are endless...

Last week when I was visiting my sisters, I was given some zucchini to take home and conger up something to make with them.  My sister, JoAnna, said to me when ever someone mentions zucchini, the first thing people say is "I'll make zucchini bread".  And that is exactly what I made.

Zucchini Bread

There is nothing like the aroma of cinnamon and nutmeg in the air when delicious zucchini bread is baking away in the oven.  Everyone has their own recipes they always use for one thing or another.  I can't quite say I have that one recipe I always use...yet.  There are so many recipes out there for zucchini bread, but I was just looking for a simple basic one to use.  I looked at several online, comparing what they all had in it and choose one from www.allrecipes.com 

Ingredients

3 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

3 teaspoons ground cinnamon

3 eggs

1 cup vegetable oil

2 1/4 cups white sugar

3 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 cups grated zucchini

1 cup chopped walnuts

Directions

Grease and flour two 8 x 4 inch pans. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C).

Sift flour, salt, baking powder, soda, and cinnamon together in a bowl.

Beat eggs, oil, vanilla, and sugar together in a large bowl. Add sifted ingredients to the creamed mixture, and beat well. Stir in zucchini and nuts until well combined. Pour batter into prepared pans.

Bake for 40 to 60 minutes, or until tester inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool in pan on rack for 20 minutes. Remove bread from pan, and completely cool.

Once the zucchini bread was out of the oven after checking it numerous times, it had a beautiful brown crunchy shell, securing something delicious inside.  After removing it from the pans and letting it cool, I could not wait to try a piece.  

As I sliced the bread, it was perfect.  Not too dry; it didn't crumble as I cut it and not too moist either.  Just the right texture and taste.  It was sweet and delicious.  Bet you wish you had some ;)