Tuesday, August 25, 2009

What happened to the Blueberries

And now, here's what happened to those 5lbs of blueberries.
Let's get out of the way the classic stuff:



a handful of blueberries, a banana and 3/4 cup of milk became a much appreciated and colorful fresh smoothie.

A couple of breakfasts were cheered up by blueberry pancakes, "with the happy face!" as a long time favourite of my kids, "Curious George makes pancakes" teaches to do:



Besides, I had still some buttermilk that I had bought in Germany (can't find it here), so those pancakes were really a hit!



We didn't go without some blueberry muffins and minimuffins (with the recipe from Shirley Corriher's "Bakewise" ):



Which were also well liked.





In the "Oh Berry Day" post, I mentioned the blueberry cjarsons, a kind of savoury wraps/ravioli with a blueberry filling. That day at the fair there was a kiosk serving them, but by the time we wanted to have lunch, they were momentarily unavailable, and we didn't want to wait too much, with two hungry kids under a hot hot hot sun. So we went for something less typical, and I came home with no idea of how blueberry cjarsons were made.

Did it stop me? Nope.

Knowing a little of the local cuisine, I knew that they couldn't be ALL that exotic, so I decided to improvise and make my own filling with ingredients that made sense:

3oz/100gr blueberries
12oz/350gr mashed potatoes
7oz/200gr ricotta
1 or 2 tbsp breadcrumbs
salt
pepper
nutmeg



I first whisked blueberries alone, than mix them with the potatoes and breadcrumbs, then whisked the ricotta in the unwashed blender, so that I could take the most of blueberries, that's why you see different tones of purple.

As for the wrap, I decided for a touch of fusion, and went back to a tecnique learned through a Daring Cooks Challenge, making potstickers...



... which were served with butter and poppyseeds.



Despite of all the salt that I had put in the filling, these potstickers were really too sweet to be a savoury dish.
Beside that, I still had a lot of leftover filling, having used barely 1/6 of it, so I had to think of a way to use it.
I decided to convert it in gnocchetti (small gnocchi).

I took what was left of the filling, added two eggs, 3 tbsp of flour, put all in a pastry bag, and as they were showing in that video I had linked, cut the gnocchetti into a pot of boiling (and SALTED, that made the difference!) water, waited for them to come to the surface, and served with butter and some parmigiano.



This time the savoury-sweet balance was alright, though the color may not be.
Nobody's perfect!


And after all this, came the round of jams.

Again, I didn't want to stop at "only blueberries", so I picked these combinings:



pineapple, redcurrant and yellow kiwi.
Plus one, not portrayed, with pure frozen maracuja pulp.

Again, as with the raspberries, I made a big batch of blueberry jam and at the same time small batches of fruit jam, always keeping a sugar/fruit ratio of 0.6/0.7.




Just two handfuls of berries were saved for freezing.
Frozen blueberries is another thing you don't find easily here, so I hoped to save a little more for the hard winter, but I guess we will have to do with our jams.


And now you know what happened to the berries.

9 comments:

  1. Wow ! It's really a great blueberry feast !!! I don't now if you have a TODIS supermarket near you, they carry buttermilk in the milk section (lait fermentè) or even Eurospin sells it. Ciao !!

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  2. WOW! Che meraviglia! Finalmente il caldo si e' abbassato e cosi' sei tornata alla cucina!

    Ho ricevuto un premio che passo a te.

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  3. You make such a good point, I should go stock my freezer with fresh picked fruit! Everything you made looks delicious :)

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  4. What a creative idea with the dumplings and the gnocchetti! I can't quite imagine what the mix of blueberries and cheese would taste like. Your pictures are gorgeous!

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  5. @ Natalia, thanks for the hint, I will try Eurospin for sure!
    @ Laura: The heat is always here: only 39C instead of 43, but I can't always have canned meat, right?
    Grazie per il premio!
    @Steph: the problem is the disproportion between all the good fruit around at this time of the year and the availability of room in the freezer.
    How is the jam exchange going?
    @jglee: thank you very much for your nice comment. Now that I've seen your pictures, it's even more welcome!

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  6. wow!
    this is my first time to your blog, if the rest of it is anything like this post, im sure i will love it! i cant wait to look around

    blueberries are one of my fav berries!

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  7. Anna, you are AMAZING!! You made so many delicious looking products, I can't even choose a favorite! I love the picture of your son--so cute. The blueberry cjarsons look like something I'd love to try and you jam looks beautiful! :)

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  8. @Hill Apple: thanks for your enthusiastic comment, and welcome to my blog! :-)

    @Jill, I still have to pick my favourite,all the jams are still untouched. But gnocchi won over cjarsons, hands low.

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  9. io sono la sua piu` grande ammiratrice, diglielo a quel tipetto con la lingua viola.

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