The Taste of Summer

Oh, how I love gathering my own produce! One of the wonderful things about Columbus is the profusion of U-Pick farms that keep you busy all summer and your freezer stocked all winter. Today we went to Sullivan's Farm to pick blackberries, which are some of my newfound favorite delights. The weather was cool and not very humid and Ben is now old enough to help out, so he and I had a great time and ended up with almost 12 pounds of blackberries. Yikes! I wasn't prepared for that when we weighed in on the old scales. So as not to waste a single juicy jewel, I've spent the afternoon sorting, freezing, and making blackberry cobblers from our haul. A shout out to Laurie A. in fabulous Butte, MT: As requested, I ate a pound for you. :)

I think I love Sullivan's so much because of the positive memories I had from last year. We were new in Columbus and I tagged along with some gals who were going and had a wonderful time. Those same people are now dear friends.

I showed Ben which ones to pick (only the big black ones) and he did great! For the record, harvesting blackberries is much easier than getting strawberries (so much hunching over) or raspberries (brambles and bugs!).
Photos courtesy of Charlotte F., thank you!

The recipe for delicious cobbler:

Northwest Blackberry Cobbler

1 c flour
1 c sugar
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp. baking powder
3/4 c milk
1/2 c butter, melted
2 c blackberries, fresh or frozen (I used 2-3 cups)
2 tsp. almond or vanilla extract

Mix flour, sugar, salt and baking powder in an 8"x8" glass baking dish. Stir in milk; blend. Pour melted butter over dough. Toss blackberries with almond/vanilla extract. Spoon over top of dough. Bake 45-50 minutes at 350 degrees, or until dough rises to top and is brown. Serve warm with vanilla ice cream.

Enjoy!