A Morning at the Berry Patch

Ah, on Saturday I finally made my way to Kuzma Drive to visit dear Charlotte at the berry patch.  Kristiina had been a couple of times already this season, but this was my first.

Charlotte is the lady that owns the land with her son, lives on the property, and runs the stand. She's a very kind and endearing old lady.  After exchanging pleasantries with her, we each took a 4-quart bucket, even Kingston, and she pointed us in the direction of the shady spots which, already, were too few.

Not many blueberries landed in Kingston's bucket.

He and Mommy had fun together.  He acted like he was going to share his berries with her then would teasingly gobble them up.  They giggled a lot.

They have one full acre, row after row, of assorted varieties of beautiful blueberries.

Whoops, dropped one on the ground.

Aria slept through another fruit-picking adventure, right there on mommy's back, like she did in the peach orchard.

With all those berries still to ripen, Charlotte expects there will still be a few more weeks of good berry-picking.

Kingston planted himself right on his knees intending to fill his bucket, too.

That looks like a real good one.

"Can I eat this one, too?"  Oh, Kingston {grin}.  We had been there about an hour at this point and he had six berries in his bucket, with about 36 in his tummy.

He never did fill that bucket, but after he tired of picking and tasting, he went to play in the dirt till Mommy and Gramma were done.  Such a sweet and silly boy!

I came home with 4.25 pounds of fresh blueberries.


I'm going to try this recipe again:

Polly's Perfect Blueberry Pie

Ingredients

Crust:
2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 to 2/3 cup salad oil
3 to 4 tablespoons milk

Pie Filling:
1 quart fresh blueberries, washed
3 tablespoons cornstarch
3/4 cup sugar
Dash ground cinnamon
Dash freshly grated nutmeg
1 teaspoon lemon juice
4 teaspoons butter

Directions

Crust:
Into a 9-inch pie plate, sift together the flour, sugar, and the salt. In a glass measuring cup, whisk together 1/2 cup salad oil and 3 tablespoons milk with a fork. Pour that over the flour mixture in pie plate and mix with a fork until all flour is evenly dampened. If it is still too dry to work with your hands, mix a little more oil with a little milk and add to flour mixture. With your hands press the dough evenly against the bottom and up the sides of the pie pan, allowing the excess to fall on the counter. (This will be the top crumble crust and is about 1/3 of the total crust mixture.) Sweep it into your hand and reserve in a small bowl. Crimp the edges of the bottom crust or use a fork dipped in milk to flatten the crust along the rim.

Berry pie filling:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
To the washed berries add cornstarch, sugar, cinnamon, and freshly grated nutmeg. Stir gently.
Place the berry mixture in the bottom crust and sprinkle lemon juice over it. Then with an ordinary teaspoon, place little 1/2 teaspoons soft butter evenly over the top of the berry filling.
Crumble the reserved crust on top of the pie.

Bake for 45 to 50 minutes. Check it after 30 minutes. If crust is getting golden but pie filling is not quite congealed, tent the pie with aluminum foil to keep crust from getting too brown.

- - - - - - - -

That's how the recipe went... but here's what really happened - By the time I pressed the crust into the pie plate, I didn't have enough for the crumble. You can't have a skimpy crust, afterall. So, I made half of the recipe again and set it aside solely for the crumble. I recommend doing it that way... the crust and crumble is really delicious.

I also added more berries and accompanying ingredients accordingly. Just thought it needed a boost. Whoa. I was in berry pie heaven.



It was from this post 2 years ago in which I was swooning over our North Carolina blueberries.

We'll see how it goes and whether it's still as good as I thought it was back then.

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On Sunday, we were at Nic and Kristiina's while she was processing her berries... half of her harvest became blueberry syrup.

We asked Kingston if he'd like to lick the bowl.

"Yes, please!"

Haha!  We had in mind finger-licking.

He had a different idea.

Oh, for heaven's sake!

Hmmm.  What?

Oh goodness, that kid!  He is so much fun and keeps me in stiches!