Berry Time!

Two things I love to share are recipes and things from the garden. So each day I'm going to share at least one of these with you.

Right now it's high berry season in the Pacific Northwest. We're at the tail end of strawberries (but don't worry...we froze some!) and just getting into blueberries, marionberries, and raspberries. YUM!!! We've been buying frequently from local fruit stands.

Last week I canned some jam (mixed berry, strawberry, blueberry, raspberry) with my friend Nikki. This morning my mother in law called and we started talking about berries and jam. Turns out I had 1 1/2 flats of mixed berries that needed to be eaten, canned or frozen ASAP. She was interested in making jam, so she came over to make a batch with me. I let her choose the combination, and we made a very yummy jam with blueberries and marionberries. I'm not sure she'll be canning any time soon (it is a precise, time consuming process), but I do see her making some freezer jam in the near future...

Here's what we made today:

Later, I made a batch of strawberry/rhubarb jam. It's not something I've ever tried before (as a jam) but who can resist that combination??? I had some rhubarb in the garden, and quickly prepped it for the jam.

We now have more jam than we'll need for the coming year, so I prepped the rest of the berries for freezing.

Before I froze them all, I quickly made up this cobbler that I've been dying to try. I actually made it for our 4th of July pot-luck. However, I made the mistake of doubling the recipe (including the melted butter at the bottom of the pan) and the texture was all wrong. It was a tasty, but gunky mess. So I wanted to test out a single recipe of it. This time we hit the jackpot. It is, quite frankly, the best cobbler I've ever made. I'm tossing out the other recipes and sticking to this one.

Which leads me to the Daily Recipe: Berry Cobbler!

The recipe is from Cook's Illustrated (July 1996), a cooking publication which is my current favorite. (They adapted the recipe from New Southern Cooking (Knopf). )I love how Cook's Illustrated tells you why things work the way they do. I only wish they'd told me not to double this recipe without reducing the butter!!

Fruit Cobbler with Batter Topping
Serves 4 to 6

6 tablespoons unsalted butter
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 cup sugar , plus 1 tablespoon
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon table salt
3/4 cup milk
2 cups fruit or berries*, sliced (not sweetened or thickened)

1. Adjust oven rack to lower-middle position and heat oven to 350 degrees. Put butter in 8-inch square or 9-inch round pan; set in oven to melt.
2. Whisk flour, 3/4 cup sugar, baking powder, and salt in small bowl. Add milk; whisk until just incorporated into dry ingredients. When butter has melted, remove pan from oven. Pour batter into pan, without stirring it into butter, then arrange fruit over batter. Sprinkle with remaining tablespoon sugar. Bake until batter browns, about 40 to 50 minutes.

* I used equal amounts (approximately) of strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, and marionberries. Tasty combo!

Enjoy!!