on the monkey trail

kitchen and garden diaries

Tag Archives: blueberries


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apple, persimmon and blueberry crumble

We are down to the last of the apples. As we started to run low I actually carried a step ladder out to the garden to get the higher ones down. That’s quite a commitment to this farming life (in my book). I have put the last few in the cold store, with the pumpkins. It’s not really necessary, they keep fine in the kitchen, but I quite like the theatre of going out to the old farm cold store. I still haven’t got over how cool it is to have such a place.

Ingredients
4 x large apples, peeled, cored and chopped into big chunks,
2 x Persimmon, peeled, cored and chopped into big chunks
A handful of frozen blueberries (if you happen to have some around)
50g butter, cut into small cubes
1 cup ground almonds
1 cup of mixed ground seeds and shredded coconut (pumpkin / flax / sunflower etc)
1 tpsn of coconut sugar (or brown sugar if you don’t have coconut)

Method
Put the fruit in an over dish with a splash of water.
Chop the butter into the ground almonds and then rub together to make a breadcrumb texture. Mix with the ground seeds, coconut and sugar.
Sprinkle over the fruit.
Bake of around an hour on 180.
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there may be trouble ahead brownies

When the going gets tough, my first instinct is to panic. Not very helpful when you are a mum of four. My second instinct is to bake something with chocolate in (although that’s not an instinct I reserve for a crisis, as you know).

Of course, as is always the case, ever since I wote my rather up-beat (totally out of character) optimistic post about sleep deprivation then things have  been falling apart around here. The six year old has a nasty case of the chicken pox (meaning his three younger brothers will have it too, within a couple of weeks) and the man of the house is feeling under the weather. So we’ve been eating lots of virtuous healthful stuff..lots of ice cream ..the odd lollypop, and absolutely no cod-liver oil (my attempt to convince B that a spoonfull of fermented fish oil would do him the world of good were spectacularly unsuccessful).

To calm the situation I made these cake/brownies, because B likes the chocolate prune combo and he has rather been calling the shots today.  Started off by stewing half a cup of prunes with half cup blueberries, a couple of spoons of chia seeds. Melted about 50g dark chocolate and 50g butter over the top. Whisked 4 eggs with 1/4 cup of raw sugar (really seeing how low I can go with the sugar now.. )  with 2 cups ground almonds and 1/2 cup cocoa powder. Blended the prunes etc and chocolate. Mixed it all together with a couple of spoons of yogurt and baked it for about 30 minutes. It’s far from being the best cake I’ve ever made (funny how a bit of stress really seeps into the baking .. or is that just me? )  but if nothing else the act of mixing the thing up, melting the chocolate, and smelling it baking, went a little way towards calming my nerves. Sadly my nerves were almost immediately shattered again by young T dropping a dozen eggs on the wooden floor (whilst attempting to lend me a hand). Eggs are no fun to try and clean off a wooden floor.

So that sums up day two of this little adventure in spots and pox and stuff. It’s going to be a long few weeks. If you’d like to cheer me up you can pop over here and give my little blog a vote. You don’t need to register on the site, you just need to scroll down and down and down until you find me.. I think I’m cruising around the 200 mark. You can vote once a day for the next few days if you’re really game. I’m not particularly a competition type of person but I impulsively registered for this and it will make me smile to see a few votes by my name amidst the chaos of the days ahead. Thanks.


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dried apricot, blueberry, amaranth, almond chocolate cake

Half a cup of dried apricots and half a cup frozen blueberries, stewed together into purple oblivion. Over the top melt a few rows of dark chocolate with 50g butter.

Get your willing helpers to whisk 4 eggs, adding half a cup of raw sugar then 3/4 cup puffed amaranth, 3/4 cup ground almonds, 1/2 cup brown rice flour, 1 tsp baking powder, a couple of spoons of cocoa powder.

Blend the apricots and blueberries with the melted chocolate and butter. Beware – this paste tastes so darn good you could easily get distracted and find you’ve eaten half of it on your way to adding it to the rest of the mix.

Beat it all up, bake it, ice it, eat it…..think about making another one.


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blueberry ice block

Stopped at Bluebank Farm on the way back from Martinborough for a big blueberry picking session with the kids. Heaps of berries, lots at kid-friendly height. They make these blueberry ice-blocks there and were kind enough to share the recipe ; basically just boil up some blueberries for a few minutes with a little sugar and lemon juice and then blend and freeze in ice-block containers – I guess the health-freaks could skip the sugar or replace it with something like honey or maple syrup. These were a beautiful intense purple colour so I’m guessing they had very little water  - have a feeling we may be making our own batch this weekend – sure have enough blueberries to use up with 3 eager young pickers.


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peach, coconut, flaxseed and blueberry swirly lunchbox muffins

This afternoon’s baking was rather random in that I started making lunchbox muffins for tomorrow without any clear plan or recipe in mind. Started with 50g of melted butter and 1/2 cup of sugar then added a couple of scoops of greek yogurt (mainly because T was helping and he likes to scoop in the yogurt at every opportunity) then put the leftover peach puree from yesterday in (about 1/2 cup). 2 eggs. Had a moment of indecision over the flour – couldn’t use almonds as for school and wasn’t confident that just coconut flour would work (fear there could be such a thing as too coconut-y in the kids opinion) so settled on 1 cup self-raising flour, 1/2 cup of coconut flour and 1/2 cup of freshly ground flaxseeds to sneak a health-kick. Looked a bit plain so blended up some defrosted frozen blueberries and honey and mixed it in using a ‘swirly whirly’ style – more for the fun of it than by design.

Fast forward a couple of hours and the lunchbox muffin is jazzed up for my pud. A few (really, just a few) squares of chocolate poked into the top then warmed through so the chocolate melts, greek yogurt and strawberries.

 


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muffin factory

There was some dispute over what flavour muffins to bake for afternoon tea so to keep the peace and to keep B and D entertained I made a base using about 70g butter (melted) 1/2 cup of soft brown sugar, 2 large spoons yogurt, 1 cup sf flour, 1/2 cup of wholemeal flour and 1/2 cup of ground almonds. Then split it into 2 bowls and gave them frozen blueberries, rasberries and chocolate chunks to add what they wanted to their own mix. More washing up than I would have liked but the results went down well – I guess kids get a kick out of eating something they feel they have some ownership over the making process of.


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New Year’s Day adventures in muffins part two; Gluten free almond, blueberry, mandarin and ginger.

G is gluten free. Gluten free baking is really not that much fun so my strategy now is to make 2 batches whenever I bake – one for the kids that I know will turn out well and one experimental batch that  G will probably be happy with because  frankly if you’re gluten free and someone bothers to bake you something then you’re going to be pretty chuffed.  I’ve discovered eggs and almonds make a good base for gluten free muffins. The eggs help them rise and set and make them less dense than the typical brick-like gluten free baked goods.

4 eggs , 1/2 cup soft brown sugar, juice and pulp of a madarin, teaspoon of powdered ginger, 1 cup ground almonds, 1 cup brown rice flour, about 50g melted butter, 1 cup blueberries.

Whisk up the eggs with a fork. Add the other ingredients except blueberries. Give it a good mix up and then tip in the blueberries. One final stir and then spoon into muffin cases. Took longer to cook than I was expecting – maybe close to half an hour (am hopeless at timing these things).


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New Year’s Day adventures in muffins part one; Wholemeal blueberry and raspberry

I make a lot of muffins. Almost every day it sometimes feels. So there will probably be a lot of muffin posts. I don’t follow any specific recipes except the ones in my head which may have originated from somewhere and I’m always trying to get the right mix between tasty and healthy.. because it’s a fine line and if you go too far on the healthy side the kids just aren’t going to eat them – they are not stupid – they know that sugar is an essential part of any good baking. Then again I use muffins to fill the kids up at morning and afternoon tea so they need to be packed with something nutritious.

Today is New Year’s Day and yesterday’s rain has gone but it’s still grey and cold. Quite English. Decided this calls for blueberry muffins.

About 50- 70g butter briefly melted until softish. Half a cup of soft brown sugar. A couple of spoons of full fat live yogurt, 2 eggs, 1 cup SR flour , 1 cup wholemeal flour, 1 cup + of frozen blueberries and rasberries.

Beat the sugar and butter (kids do this so it’s a bit inexpert) add in a couple of spoons of yogurt (another kids job) crack in the eggs and then add the flour – don’t bother sifting (kids do all this). Take it off the kids and give it a good mix then get kids to stir in what’s left of the fruit (they will probably have eaten a good amount of it by now so it may need to be replenished). Spoon into muffin cases and bake for somewhere between 10 and 15 minutes.

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