Berry pickin'! And recipes, too!

So today, to celebrate Memorial Day, we went to take advantage of a local farm chock full of our favorite blue fruit..

Blueberries!

We have a great little place right up the road where you can pick your own berries, and blueberries are in season. I love picking my own, so we took a little field trip this morning to get in touch with nature and enjoy some fresh, local produce.

Blueberries are one of the best-for-you fruits out there! Thanks to Reader's Digest, I'm able to tell you blueberries have the following health benefits:

• Good source of dietary fiber.
• Excellent source of antioxidants.
• Provide some vitamin C and iron.
• May help protect against some intestinal upsets.
• May protect against urinary tract infections.
• Anthocyanins may help protect against heart disease and cancer and may help prevent memory loss.

And, they're freakin' tasty! I didn't bring my camera along, so you don't get to see me with a bucket strapped to my waist, or skipping merrily down the rows and rows of berry bushes.

But you do get to see the end product...

FOUR pounds of berries! (Carrying them around my waist as we picked them was great cardio!) So, what do you do with four pounds of berries?

You make the most epic blueberry muffins ever.

I'm going to share with you my recipe for the yummiest, cake-iest, most decadent muffins I've ever made. It really is the best recipe I've tried yet. Here's whatcha need:

1 cup fresh blueberries
1 1/2 cups flour
3/4 cup white sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 egg
1/3 cup milk

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees and line your baking cups with paper liners.

Combine your flour, sugar, salt, and baking powder until well mixed. Add your vegetable oil, egg, and milk and mix with dry ingredients until just moistened. Your batter will be VERY THICK!! It's supposed to be; it holds the fruit in place in the muffin cups so all your berries don't sink to the bottom of your muffin.

Fold in your blueberries gently and then fill your muffin cups right to the top. Since the batter is so thick, I used my hands for this step, but you could use two large spoons. I was able to fill 10 of the 12 cups on my tin, so if you want more, you can double the ingredients.

Bake for 20 minutes, and voila!

SUPER tasty. You could make these muffins with anything; blackberries, cranberries, chocolate chips... and you can bet I'll try this with chocolate chips!

And after that? Yanno what I made?

Blueberry iced tea.

First I made a pitcher of regular iced tea. (I like Lipton cold brew!) Poured myself a big old glass when it was done, into the blender, along with a handful of blueberries. Blend on puree. Voila!

You can leave the skins (like I did) or strain them out; personally, I find them v. tasty. :)

And that, my friends, is fun with blueberries! Hurrah!!

* * * *
You may or may not have noticed that I switched the comments on this blog to the Disqus system; I LOVE it because I'm able to comment back to the commenter right here in the comments, as opposed to email. So if you notice a different format when commenting, fear not, you're not in the Twilight Zone. ... Yet.

Oh, Paula Deen... The Better-For-You Nuggets!

I'll admit it, Paula Deen is one of my Food Network faves. She's happy, spirited, has a great charming Southern home in lovely Savannah, and she loves what she does. (AND I have an autographed cookbook with my name in it!) My only complaint? She may love it a little *too* much.

Some of her recipes are a little ... much. On the butter side of things.

A few months ago, I made this recipe. (Paula Deen's Homemade Chicken Nuggets) I was a little confounded by the melted butter, especially as I was pouring it over the greasy chip-covered chicken that had already been dipped in egg. Was this all really necessary? And yeah, they tasted great, but my eat-healthy side couldn't help but frown at me. So, I made a few changes ...

(Those aren't mine! And I wish my nails looked that nice.. hee hee.)

Take away the potato chips and replace them with ... Total. Yes, Total. Take it, toss it in your blender or food processor, and crumb. I was skeptical (althought not as skeptical as Matt) but it made a nice, dry, tasty, better-for-you crust that actually came out crunchier than the chip coating! Eggs are ok to use, but Egg Beaters are better! And the butter? Not even needed! Serve with warm honey and you have a four ingredient, yummy meal that's great for you and not your average dinner fare. I love making these at home!

I will, though, still wear my bright lime green HAY Y'ALL! Paula Deen t-shirt with pride.



Hope everyone had a lovely weekend - the clouds have finally skedaddled here and it's sunny, balmy, and just a great Southern spring day. I've got some plans for a few fun excursions this week to balance out unemployed job-searching Sami with enjoy your time Sami. :) Yay!

Of car photos and pork chops!

Wowza! Check out the paint color on that car!! Today was a goooorgeous Saturday morning, so we headed downtown for our local Rims on the River event... hundreds of classic cars and motorcycles took up a chunk of the downtown streets, and everything was closed off so we could walk around and admire all of the shinies. SO fun! We spent about two hours out in the sun taking photos, ogling awesome vehicles, and taking photos! I'll post a couple more below... you can always click on them to check out the bigger version... (Did you know that paint above has metallic shinies in it?? Yeah.... big versions are awesome!!)

Our local farmer's market was in full swing! Today was the first day of the year for the farmer's market, so it was DEFINITELY very busy!! So many fresh herbs, veggies, meats, and the flowers.. oohh, the flowers!! Love it! Even local wine and cheese!

Okay, I would ride this pink bike EVERYWHERE!!!! (It has a little painting of the bunny and skunk from Bambi on the side there! And Bambi was painted on the OTHER side!)

And promptly upon returning home, a smidge sunburned... I promptly slept for 2 hours. Gee, what a fun time I am, huh? ;)



I just finished eating dinner; tonight I grilled some porkchops. The ever-awesome Standy asked how I make them ... so I'll tell you!

(Not mine, but they come out looking just like it!)

I used to bread and pan-fry my porkchops, but after grilling them once I'll NEVER go back to that method! They are just so much tastier and healthier grilled, and they always come out so much jucier. I use my Griddler, one of the best birthday gifts Matt's ever gotten me - seriously, you can make EVERYTHING on this thing!! I'll brush the grill pans with EVOO and set it up to heat, wash the chops, and salt and pepper them lightly. Then I'll either do one of two things - dust some of Chef Paul Prudhomme's Meat Magic (YUM) on 'em and toss them on the grill, or sprinkle some fresh basil on them instead. Either way, I'll close the Griddler and with both the top and bottom grill plates pressed on 'em they're done in like 5 minutes. I used to actually brush them with honey pre-grilling, and they came out AMAZING (a little grilled-on honey crust, mmmm), but the honey is SUCH a P.I.T.A to clean off the grill plates that I rarely do it anymore.

So there you have it! I'll dish up either some jasmine rice or french-cut green beans for a side dish, and voila, healthy and tasty!

Hmm... speaking of grill plates, time to go clean those bad boys... 'till next time! :)