Blackberry Picking


Well, hello! We've been busy around here so I haven't gotten around to blogging much. One of the most exciting reasons for this busy-ness has been the abundance of free food available for foraging during this summer-turning-quickly-into-fall season. First on the free food list: blackberries!

We noticed blackberries ripening all around us in hedgerows a month or so ago, but they were pretty bitter. We weren't sure whether wild blackberries here would just generally be bitter, but we went picking two weeks ago and were pleasantly surprised to find the berries were perfectly sweet. Since we are literally surrounded by bramble bushes, and since I might be slightly enthusiastic about both frugality and producing one's own food, I may or may not have gone slightly overboard in my blackberry picking enthusiasm.

We went out as a family every evening for a week picking various brambles around the village. We've been eating a lot of blackberry food. Our first experiment was a delicious blackberry cobbler that we had with poetry tea time (paired with tea and some A.A. Milne poetry...)



I forgot to take a picture before tea time, so here is the cobbler already mostly eaten. You can see all the juicy blackberries in there at least!


Knowing I would never be able to use all of them in baked goods (at least, not without severely neglecting my children so I could bake all day...) I also froze some. Okay, I froze a lot. Okay, our chest freezer is probably one-third filled with blackberries. If you come over for dessert in the next few months, you'll probably get something blackberry. Don't say I didn't warn you.




In a further attempt at preservation, I also made jam. I only intended to make a small batch, but I ended up with three big jars full. If you come over for lunch, you'll get a peanut butter and blackberry jam sandwich :)



We also made a blackberry pie, which I also forgot to photograph before we ate most of it. You can see part of the pretty hearts we cut out of the top. Tomorrow I'm going to make a blackberry apple pie for dessert. (Spoiler alert: part two of the Foraged Free Food series will be apples.)


Did I take any pictures of us picking all these juicy blackberries? No, I didn't. I was too busy filling my pail and avoiding the nettles (which I did with only varying degrees of success...I mean, I filled the pail, but got nettled quite a few times.)


Comments

  1. din'illahi3 September 2018 at 11:47

    Yum! Blackberries are invasive here but I love them. Our first few years in Seattle we did much as you did! I still pick some every year but about a 30th of what I used to pick. 😊
    We are at airport, waiting to board. If you change your mind last minute let us know! 😬

    ReplyDelete
  2. Rachel3 September 2018 at 13:00

    Ooh, have a great trip!! Will be excited to hear about it (and will let you know if we join last minute...)

    ReplyDelete

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