Clafouti!! Bless you.
We've gotten into the habit of going blueberry picking every summer and then freezing as many as we can haul home. Okay, if I'm being honest, I've gotten into the habit of sending Chris, Maddie, and Nana blueberry picking in July while I stay home with the boys in the air conditioning. I just do it because I know the boys would not care for the heat or bugs and would just make everyone miserable with their complaining. Oh, those boys.
This year we had several gallon-sized bags full of berries and we still weren't sure it would last us all year. Many times we end up confiscating some of Nana's supply because evidently we can put away the blueberries. Hey, it's because we're such health nuts and just love our Super Foods...and because they're yummy, especially if you pair them with sugar and butter in lots of different recipes.
A couple of weeks ago, a friend just happened to call at the right moment in order to prevent a total meltdown by yours truly. You see, I had just been to the basement and realized that the door of our deep freezer hadn't been shut all the way...at least one to two weeks prior to that moment. My fears had come true! You see, ever since we'd hit the mother load of blueberries, I'd worried that something would happen and they'd all be lost to us. (That happened once with a newly bought pile of chicken. That made me sick, but fresh-picked blueberries are oh so much more precious than chicken.)
Everything in the freezer was thawed. Cold, but thawed. The horror! It was like a nightmare I couldn't wake up from. My precious berries.
I grabbed the bags and ran upstairs, throwing them in the freezer and throwing up a prayer. And just before nuclear meltdown, the phone rang and I was able to gain a little perspective on the whole situation. Life would go on, even if the berries were not salvagable.
But I'm happy to report that we've been using some of the refrozen berries and nothing horrifying has happened. Everything has turned out just as yummy as always.
Tragedy averted.
(Just so you know, I'm completely aware that this qualifies as a first world problem. That's my new catch phrase to help me appreciate the very minor nature of most of the problems that I face in a day. Kids being late to bed, spilled milk on the kitchen floor, grout that just won't quit cracking, a really gross shower that needs scrubbing, not getting my workout in...all first world problems. Not worth losing my religion over.)
Still, I'm pretty happy to have blueberries, especially tonight because we had...
Blueberry Clafouti (Cla-FOO-tee)
What's a clafouti, you ask? Something I like to eat. And something I like to make since it's super easy and hardly gets any dishes dirty.
So just in case you, too, have a freezer full of blueberries and want to bask in all their berry goodness all year long, here's the recipe:
2 1/2 cups blueberries, sweetened to taste
3 drops (or more) of almond extract
1 cup flour
1 cup sugar
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
3/4 cup milk
1 stick butter, melted
Preheat to 350. Sprinkle almond extract over sweetened berries and set aside.
Stir flour, sugar, salt, and baking powder in a 2 1/2 quart baking dish. Add the milk and stir until mixed well. Pour the butter over the mixture (don't stir anymore) and then sprinkle the blueberries over the top.
Bake for 1 hour to 1 hour 15 minutes or until the top is brown.
Serve with vanilla ice cream. Trust me. Serve it with ice cream, right after it comes out of the oven.
I realize that if this were a real blog, I'd have pictures of this, but I'm usually so excited to get my food ready and actually eat it (and there are usually just a few people screaming similar sentiments), that I never think to take pictures until after I'm done. And I doubt you want pics of my dirty dishes.
Well, just in case...here's what was left of the first clafouti I made about 15 minutes after it came out of the oven.
In case you're remotely interested, here are a few more of my favorite blueberry recipes.
Here are some yummy Blueberry Bars. (Okay, I was certain I'd taken a photo of this a while back, but I must have deleted it thinking I'd never really get around to posting this.) I've served it as dessert, but around our house there's a fine line between dessert and breakfast, which is what I usually serve it as.
Of course, there's the legitimate breakfast meal of Blueberry Pancakes and the always popular Blueberry Muffin (with a healthy twist).
And here is my oldest and most favorite blueberry recipe: Blueberry Poundcake. Ain't nuttin' healthy 'bout this.
Ingredients:
1 cup butter
2 cups blueberries, washed
2 1/4 cups sugar
4 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
3 cups all purpose flour, divided
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1. Grease and flour 10" tube pan. Set aside. Preheat oven to 325.
2. Cream butter, gradually adding sugar, eggs, and vanilla. Mix well.
3. In separate bowl, combine 2 1/4 cups flour, baking powder, and salt.
4. Gradually add flour mixture to butter mixture. Mix well.
5. Coat blueberries with remaining flour and fold them into cake mixture. Pour into pan.
6. Bake at 325 for 1 hour 10 minutes.
I would add the ever-so-easy and always popular Blueberry Turnovers, but I feel that I've bored you enough with berries.
And now I can go to bed happy, because there's more clafouti in my frig. I'm one lucky girl.
This year we had several gallon-sized bags full of berries and we still weren't sure it would last us all year. Many times we end up confiscating some of Nana's supply because evidently we can put away the blueberries. Hey, it's because we're such health nuts and just love our Super Foods...and because they're yummy, especially if you pair them with sugar and butter in lots of different recipes.
A couple of weeks ago, a friend just happened to call at the right moment in order to prevent a total meltdown by yours truly. You see, I had just been to the basement and realized that the door of our deep freezer hadn't been shut all the way...at least one to two weeks prior to that moment. My fears had come true! You see, ever since we'd hit the mother load of blueberries, I'd worried that something would happen and they'd all be lost to us. (That happened once with a newly bought pile of chicken. That made me sick, but fresh-picked blueberries are oh so much more precious than chicken.)
Everything in the freezer was thawed. Cold, but thawed. The horror! It was like a nightmare I couldn't wake up from. My precious berries.
I grabbed the bags and ran upstairs, throwing them in the freezer and throwing up a prayer. And just before nuclear meltdown, the phone rang and I was able to gain a little perspective on the whole situation. Life would go on, even if the berries were not salvagable.
But I'm happy to report that we've been using some of the refrozen berries and nothing horrifying has happened. Everything has turned out just as yummy as always.
Tragedy averted.
(Just so you know, I'm completely aware that this qualifies as a first world problem. That's my new catch phrase to help me appreciate the very minor nature of most of the problems that I face in a day. Kids being late to bed, spilled milk on the kitchen floor, grout that just won't quit cracking, a really gross shower that needs scrubbing, not getting my workout in...all first world problems. Not worth losing my religion over.)
Still, I'm pretty happy to have blueberries, especially tonight because we had...
Blueberry Clafouti (Cla-FOO-tee)
What's a clafouti, you ask? Something I like to eat. And something I like to make since it's super easy and hardly gets any dishes dirty.
So just in case you, too, have a freezer full of blueberries and want to bask in all their berry goodness all year long, here's the recipe:
2 1/2 cups blueberries, sweetened to taste
3 drops (or more) of almond extract
1 cup flour
1 cup sugar
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
3/4 cup milk
1 stick butter, melted
Preheat to 350. Sprinkle almond extract over sweetened berries and set aside.
Stir flour, sugar, salt, and baking powder in a 2 1/2 quart baking dish. Add the milk and stir until mixed well. Pour the butter over the mixture (don't stir anymore) and then sprinkle the blueberries over the top.
Bake for 1 hour to 1 hour 15 minutes or until the top is brown.
Serve with vanilla ice cream. Trust me. Serve it with ice cream, right after it comes out of the oven.
I realize that if this were a real blog, I'd have pictures of this, but I'm usually so excited to get my food ready and actually eat it (and there are usually just a few people screaming similar sentiments), that I never think to take pictures until after I'm done. And I doubt you want pics of my dirty dishes.
Well, just in case...here's what was left of the first clafouti I made about 15 minutes after it came out of the oven.
In case you're remotely interested, here are a few more of my favorite blueberry recipes.
Here are some yummy Blueberry Bars. (Okay, I was certain I'd taken a photo of this a while back, but I must have deleted it thinking I'd never really get around to posting this.) I've served it as dessert, but around our house there's a fine line between dessert and breakfast, which is what I usually serve it as.
Of course, there's the legitimate breakfast meal of Blueberry Pancakes and the always popular Blueberry Muffin (with a healthy twist).
And here is my oldest and most favorite blueberry recipe: Blueberry Poundcake. Ain't nuttin' healthy 'bout this.
Ingredients:
1 cup butter
2 cups blueberries, washed
2 1/4 cups sugar
4 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
3 cups all purpose flour, divided
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1. Grease and flour 10" tube pan. Set aside. Preheat oven to 325.
2. Cream butter, gradually adding sugar, eggs, and vanilla. Mix well.
3. In separate bowl, combine 2 1/4 cups flour, baking powder, and salt.
4. Gradually add flour mixture to butter mixture. Mix well.
5. Coat blueberries with remaining flour and fold them into cake mixture. Pour into pan.
6. Bake at 325 for 1 hour 10 minutes.
I would add the ever-so-easy and always popular Blueberry Turnovers, but I feel that I've bored you enough with berries.
And now I can go to bed happy, because there's more clafouti in my frig. I'm one lucky girl.
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