BLUEBERRIES

Last weekend our friends at Wilding Acres Farm invited us to pick blueberries. Their bushes were crammed full of ripe and soon to be ripe berries.

They’ve been waiting in the refrigerator for me to process them. Today, I wasn’t feeling very work-y so that was a good project.

After washing and drying them, I set aside enough for a treat, and I froze the rest on silicone trays. This keeps them from freezing as a block, making them easy to use throughout the year.

After they were in the freezer for a couple of hours, I quickly put 1 cup each into snack-size baggies. Then I put those small bags into a gallon-size baggie and put them back into the freezer to use throughout the next year.

I ended up with 10 cups of blueberries in the freezer.

And the ones I set aside? I saved about a cup for immediate use…

… and made a batch of blueberry muffins.

I just used a basic muffin recipe from my old 1970’s (or 80’s?) Betty Crocker cookbook. They were so much better than you get from a mix.

BLUEBERRY MUFFINS

1 egg

3/4 cup milk

1 cup fresh (or 3/4 cup frozen) blueberries

1/2 cup vegetable oil

2 cups flour

1/3 cup sugar

3 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Grease bottoms only of 12 medium muffin cups (I use paper liners).

Beat egg; stir in milk, blueberries, and oil. Stir in remaining ingredients all at once just until flour is moistened (batter will be lumpy).

Fill muffin cups about 3/4 full.

Bake about 20 minutes or until golden brown. Immediately remove from pan.

Try to wait for them to cool a bit before eating one!