Monday, August 22, 2011

raspberries and blueberries

Raspberry curd! Recipes in previous posting. So delicious on ice cream, yogurt, pancakes, waffles, toast, or in squares with shortbread.


Blueberry oatmeal squares, so crumbly and so delicious. Recipe also in previous post.

Saturday, August 20, 2011

berries galore



Nothing like an evening with Fleetwood Mac and a new (!) fridge full of berries. I went berry picking yesterday with my Mum at Andrew's Scenic Acres, out by Milton, and returned home with tons and tons of blueberries. Also in the spoils were a handful of raspberries, black currant juice, raspberry honey and six gorgeous gladiolas.

Now what to do with all this fruit? Well, it's a good thing I'm a prolific bookmarker; when you read as many food blogs as I do, it's hard to keep up with your recipe to-make list. I must have over 300 bookmarks in the 'food and recipe' folder. Sigh, one day.


Anyway, amongst the bookmarks, I stumbled upon this post from Tea and Cookies for raspberry curd. Now, I've made lemon curd and rhubarb curd, but never raspberry! The colour alone was enough to convince me. There seems to be 100 and 1 ways to make curd: eggs first, eggs last, butter cold, butter one tablespoon at a time, throw everything together in a faux curd (from my favourite Martha recipe for Lemon Squares - seriously, make this recipe! It will get you rave reviews at any pot luck). Tea and Cookies raspberry curd is a pretty simple affair, and it turned out delicious!


With the bucketfuls of blueberries, I started with a straight-up recipe from Canada Living: Blueberry Oatmeal Squares. The jury's still out on those, since they're still in the oven, and I had to make a few substitutions.

Recipes and photos to follow - you all know how food hates to be photographed at night. Gotta wait for that natural sunlight.

Thursday, August 18, 2011

Summer fun!


Here's a delicious drink I had a few weeks ago at my friend's lovely farm ... to quote a her, "it's like a girl party in my mouth!" Sangria is really only as good as the ingredients you put in it. Any combination of delicious juice, something sparkling, and some sort of wine will be excellent, and you can always throw in some extra hard liquor for a kick - may I suggest brandy for a red wine sangria or peach schnapps for a white wine sangria? Best of all, drink it on a lazy summer's day with some tasty summer food.

Summer Sangria

1 bottle of Moscato (or another sparkling white)
3 or 4 cups of tropical juice (we went for Ceres 'Medley of Fruits')
1 can of club soda
Seeds from one pomegranate

Combine and serve over ice! (With a crazy fruit garnish and umbrella, just because it's sangria.)