Monday, September 07, 2009

Fruit Cobbler (Today it's Blackberry!!)

It's towards the end of blackberry season here in the Pacific Northwest. You can see them along every roadside and vacant lot hanging in shiny black, forgotten clusters.


Once in a while you'll see a car parked and people filling container after container with free fruit, but they're so ubiquitous that most people
don't bother.

Friends invited us over to pick blackberries in their backyard a few days ago, berries they had cultivated; much more accessible and easy to pick. (Virtually unheard of in the land of blackberries as hated and uncontrollable weeds)
These berries were HUGE, often bigger than my thumb, and in just a few minutes we had buckets overflowing and purple stained fingers.

My youngest Sprout helped me gently put berries in pint freezer containers, we now have a lovely little stash for later this winter.

We (she!) made Blackberry Cobbler with the rest.
Our recipe for Fruit Cobbler works with most any juicy fruit, you just adjust the sugar for the sweetness of your fruit and your taste.

Blackberry (or any fruit) Cobbler

¾ - 1 cup sugar (depending on sweetness of fruit)
4 tsp. cornstarch
1 cup water
1/2 tsp. lemon juice
a few DROPS vanilla* extract
(*or almond extract if using apricots or pitted pie cherries)
tiniest pinch of salt

Mix cornstarch with water.
Bring above ingredients to a boil and boil 1 minute, stirring constantly.

Add 4 - 5 cups berries or other fruit.

Add fruit to the sauce, and with any accumulated juices. Stir gently.(Peaches, plums, apricots,
berries; You'll need to peel peaches or the skins float off in an unappetizing way. Chop or slice into desired size pieces.)Pour fruit into 1½ - 2 quart baking dish. (an 9 X 12 glass pan or similar, you don't want it too full or it will bubble over). Dot fruit with a bit of margarine (And I usually add a bit of cinnamon if I'm using peaches)

1 cup flour* of your choice
(I like part white and part spelt)
1 Tbsp. brown sugar
1 ½ tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. salt
3 Tbsp. coconut oil
½ cup milk

Heat oven to 400°. Mix flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in a bowl. Use a pastry blender or two forks to cut in coconut oil until mixture looks like crumbly 'meal'. Stir in milk. Drop dough by teaspoon fulls over hot fruit. Cover as much of the top of the pan as possible, it will
spread during baking though...

Bake for 25 - 30 minutes until cobbler top has puffed and browned. Serve warm.

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Two of my Sprouts and I went to Pike Place Farmers Market for Labor Day (along with half the state) and enjoyed looking at the beautiful flowers and end-of-summer produce there.
Glad we got our berries for free!!












My children also wanted to visit the infamous "Gum Wall" on Post Alley which I personally thought was wildly disgusting.
They seemed to LOVE it, I may be traumatised for life. I'd much rather look at fruit and flowers.

Hope you all had a great weekend!!


7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ewwww...is your daughter TOUCHING other people's chewed up gum!? Gross!

I am supremely jealous of your free blackberries...I can't even imagine! What a treat--enjoy them!

Courtney

Karyn said...

I am drooling on my keyboard over those berries and that really yummy looking cobbler.

There is a Bubble Gum Alley in San Luis Obispo, too. My kids always had to go add to it when we were visiting Gramma & Grandpa....I always thought it was eeeewwww, too.

Binx said...

Beautiful! and delicious!

one of my favorite things that I associate with the summers in northern cali are the blackberries... we always make jam or pie or something. and in august there's the Blackberry Festival.. always fun! but you're right, they grow everywhere... and can be annoying.

The Voracious Vegan said...

YUM! Thank you so much for the recipe, it looks absolutely delicious.

Although that gum wall....I'm not so sure!

T said...

Oh my goodness, those pictures are lovely and that dessert looks like the perfect thing to end the summer. Yum!

Cynthia said...

Girl, this summer I fell in love all over again with blackberry and it was an intense love. I think the blackberries said, "woman! find another berry to love, give me a break!" (lol)

Rose said...

Oh this looks so yummy! We use to have a gigantic mulberrybush down the road which would have been perfect to this...sadly it was cut down.
Theres so many yummy looking things on your blog, youve convinced me to follow you to see what treats you come up with next :) Those cheesecake slices in the last post look awesome!

Rose