A Blueberry Farm Adventure

May 27

With a desperate need to escape from quarantine, our little family took a trip to a nearby blueberry farm a couple weeks ago. With large open spaces, plenty of sunshine and fresh air, it was the perfect little outing. This was our first experience blueberry picking and our first time out of the house in at least eight weeks(not counting walks and biking)so we all were super excited. Sister even wore a fancy dress for the occasion;)

The farm(Albritton Fruit Farm) was well-equipped and provided everything needed for a perfect experience. Armed with a bucket in each hand, off we went on our search. Who knew there were so many varieties of blueberries? We sampled the sun-warmed berries straight from the bush as we strolled along each row. We learned that the Emerald variety is a firm, semi-sweet berry that can grow quite large. The Spring-High variety is a small-medium sized berry that is very sweet. The farmer’s favorite and ours too was the Jewel variety; large, soft skinned, with a sweet and tart flavor.

Seeing all the green row after row was very grounding and I felt a much-needed sense of re-connection.

After hand selecting our four pounds(I can’t believe we picked that many) of blueberry treasures, I couldn’t wait to head home and decide what to make with them. Since they were the best blueberries I had ever eaten, I set aside a large bowl just for snacking and smoothies before I began my search for the perfect recipe. Usually I would make a crisp(like this one) with fresh fruit but I wanted to try something new this time. I decided on an Easy Blueberry Cheesecake dessert(instead of canned filling, we made home-made) and these delicious Banana-Blueberry Muffins. The kids got into helping and my son, the little chef, convinced me that we also needed to make blueberry syrup to pour over pancakes(we actually used this blueberry filling recipe since it could double for the cheesecake filling and syrup). ***Not my own recipes but all of them can be found on my Pinterest boards***

After all our hard work, we tasted the fruits of our labor(I hate I didn’t get pictures). My daughter liked the graham cracker crust from the blueberry dessert the best and they both devoured the muffins over the next two days! We also enjoyed the blueberry syrup over our pancakes that weekend but by that point it had congealed a little more than our liking. Next time I will make an actual syrup instead of the filling. I’m not telling how many pieces of that dessert I enjoyed but I’ll just say none of it went to waste;)