Don't cooks use berries?

[Abra]

I posted this in the Cooking Forum, and nobody replied. Is Pastry the only place to talk about fruit?

We've had the most perfect, most delicious, most plentiful, and cheapest raspberries grown here on the island this year. I've never been in such Raspberry Nirvana before. Today I got 6 half-flats and made:

raspberry champagne vinegar, red wine-raspberry aperitif, raspberry liqueur, and raspberry rose jam. Then, just for fun, I also made some little jars of nasturtium, lavender, and burnet vinegars. Some I'll use for client gifts, and some for friend gifts, and of course I'll keep some for myself.

While I was beavering away in the kitchen we had the most torrential downpour, with thunder and lightning, so that means it's the end of the raspberries for this year. Any that made it through the rain with be squishy and tend to mold. It's a good thing my blueberry bushes are almost ready for picking. I'm hoping to be up to my elbows in blueberries on Monday.

What are you all doing with summer's bounty?

[Susan in FL]

I have a recipe for grilled Cornish hens with raspberries that I love, and some others for main courses, but this weekend this is what I did with berries.

[Wendy DeBord]

I can only recall what I used to do and wish I had your lovely raspberries. This year is my first year with-out a edible garden. I didn't even have time to plant any annuals in my flower urn in the front of my home. It's been all work for me this summer.

Raspberry is definately one of my favorite fruits and it combines with many other flavors nicely. I adore rasp. sorbet.....I could drink rasp. puree for a treat.

Lucky you!!!!!! Sometimes when we'd ride on the bike path we'd run across wild rasp. bushes-that was alway a treat.....typically the bees get more then I'm willing to fight them over.

[Abra]

I have to confess to being stunned. Thanks to the reader counter, I can see that over 80 people have perused this topic, but only the two of you have replied. I just assumed that everyone was in the same mode as I am - saving up the summer. But it's always good to have one's illusions shattered - builds character!

Gorgeous blackberries, Susan.

[Wendy DeBord]

Oh goodness, gardening takes time and some skill. Then putting items up for the winter=lots of time. I greatly enjoy the whole process. It's very gratifying.

It all depends upon where you live and your life style........berries take room to grow and the hardest part (for me) is finding the free time at the peak time of harvest to can..... my life revolves around my work schedule of which I have little control during our busy season.

You really have to work hard to time out your plantings so your crops aren't all peeking at the same time. And even so-they ignore your efforts and everything seems to ripen the same week.

Truthfully it became a negative experience over the years for me. I'd rarely get my jars back. We'd get sick of the items with-in a couple months and I'd wind up throwing out my efforts just to empty the jars so I could cann the next season. It became a chore just giving items out.

My parents warned me before I borrowed their jars that it becomes a chore over time..........of course I ignored their warning- it's fun and forfilling during the time your enjoying it and I'm glad I took the time to do so.

[curlywurlyfi]

Yesterday I was at friends who live in the country and they gave us their home-grown raspberries mulched up with a bit of cream and piped into brandysnaps. It was such an old-fashioned treat, it was lovely! And a jar of home-made strawberry jam...

Fi

[patticky]

I have made chocolate cups with fresh berries in the middle. But my husband loves a dish of raspberries topped with a little sugar and ice cold milk. Since I think chocolate and raspberry is such a nice combo, I make sundaes with vanilla ice cream, fresh raspberries and a good drizzle of chocolate sauce. Raspberries are so precious to me I try to keep it simple.

[duckduck]

Just a bowl, a spoon and a little half and half. It's one of the greatest joys in life as far as I'm concerned. Which reminds me...I've been gone. Time to head over to my brother's house and see what's ripe in the back yard!

[tejon]

Exactly. I'm eating berries out of hand and loving every moment of it. During the summer I consume fruit with wild abandon in order to make up for slim pickings later on in the year.

[duckduck]

Went to a wedding over the weekend that was fairly non-traditional in a lot of ways. The wedding party and a good number of the guests were dressed in renaissance style garb (think Man in the Iron Mask) and I knew they hadn't ordered a wedding cake yet when I left for the world pastry forum. I half expected to be asked when I came home but instead the bride and groom decided what they really wanted was fresh fruit. They took clear plastic punch cups and layered them with fresh raspberries and blueberries and arranged the cups in tiers to replace the cake. Beside it was two wine carafes on ice filled with sweetened cream. It was perfect. Somtimes simple is truly best.

[MsMelkor]

I made lemon curd the other night and have been putting a dollop of that on my fresh strawberries, blackberries, and blueberries.

[Smithy]

I pick the local wild raspberries and make wonderful sauces of them, those that I don't eat out of hand, and those sauces go on desserts whenever I can find someone to eat them. The wild raspberries are better-tasting than any domestic raspberries of my experience, but they're also a bit too seedy to make comfortable eating for most people. I freeze some blueberries for use later in pies, but a lot of them are eaten with breakfast cereal, too. I'm living on fruit right now, unfortunately a good deal of it store-bought but good anyway. But the berries! A couple of years ago I made a compote from raspberries and tart cherries, with a bit of kirsch, from a recipe in a cookbook. The result was a very fruity ruby-colored cherry-raspberry sauce with a small touch of alcohol, perfect for ice cream or dark chocolate cake. I loved it, my best friend and her family loved it. I shared jars with my family and other friends. Not a peep from any of 'em! When my best friend and I get together in a couple of weeks I'm taking her the rest of the jars. I won't bother trying to make it again, since my husband won't eat it and nobody else seemed to think it was as wonderful as Susan and I had. What a disappointment!

Fruit salad hardly seems worth mentioning - I assume everyone does that regularly - except that people around here seem to think it's exotic!

[Carrot Top]

Usually when I get berries, I get a whole lot at a time, so just freeze them on baking sheets then pop them into plastic freezer bags for the future.

Two things come to mind...no...actually three. The first is simple. A hot raspberry sauce for ice cream made by simply boiling them with sugar and vanilla briefly if you like vanilla. Serving this hot over vanilla ice cream is...well. Just imagine.

Another would be raspberry crepes.

Another, which is yet another way to preserve the bounty, is to make something like a lemon curd out of the berries, the juice of the crushed berries. It could be made 'straight' just from a lemon curd recipe, or adapted somewhat by adding gelatin to make it more like a dessert to be eaten with a spoon and some whipped cream! I don't have a recipe for this, but my mother-in-law used to make it.

Of course, there is always fresh raspberry jello, made with unflavored gelatin.

I bet a Cornish Game Hen would be good, split, browned then braised with raspberries and some sort of pepper and chive demi-glace sauce...with or without a finish of cream whisked into the sauce.

[FistFullaRoux]

Am I the only person on the face of the earth who truly dislikes raspberries? Blackberries are fine, but raspberries ruin the whole thing. I've seen the lovliest chocolate pastries and cakes, and look forward to dispaching them at the first opportunity... then I smell them.

The smell isn't so bad. I quite enjoy it. I think that was because this one girl I had a fling with used this body spray... but I digress.

Once I know that rasperries are in it, I just cannot stomach it. And it seems that every recipe containing chocolate also has raspberry as an ingredient. Drives me bonkers.

[Carrot Top]

Abra...I am digressing too...but tell me (about your quote at the end of your postings) How does your husband manage to sort out the hungry from the stupid?

[Abra]

Actually, my son had a pretty good rejoinder: "But what about the stupid who are also hungry?"

Blueberries have taken over my life. We picked 25 lbs last weekend - I made pancakes, muffins, syrup, and blueberry herb vinegar, froze a ton, and still have about 10 lbs left to deal with today. and then the bushes probably have that much again for me to address next week.

I'm with all those who live on fruit at this time of year, and also with those who don't like beries with chocolate. Now that I think of it, that probably makes me a crow - that's who's really after the berries right now.

[Carrot Top]

Ha, ha! Good response from your son. Maybe they could eat themselves?

Fantastic recipe for lemon-blueberry loaf in 'The New Basics Cookbook' by Julee Rosso and Sheila Lukins. Best I've ever tasted. Works with frozen berries, too!

The only problem with the recipe is that people keep demanding that you make it....

[heyjude]

Abra, I wish you had been at the Cooks and Books dinner on Monday, here in Seattle. The guest was Janie Hibler author of The Berry Bible. The meal was five courses all using local berries and it was fabulous. First course was a cold Raspberry and Melon Soup garnished with berries, cucumber and sweet onion. Next came a salad of Arugula, Almond and Blueberries with Gorgonzola. Third course was my favorite, Grilled Quinalt River sturgeon with Red Currant Buerre Blanc and mild tomatillo salsa. Then Roasted Muscovy Duck Breast with fresh plum and blackberry sauce leading up to dessert of a Mission Fig stuffed with White Chocolate Mousse witha basil infused Raspberry puree. It was inspiring. I will post reminders about the upcoming events on the PNW board.

[Katherine]

I have red raspberries in my backyard, and the season's just started. Yesterday I picked about a quart and a half. I washed and picked them over, thinking about how the raspberries in the freezer never seem to get used up from year to year. Then I dumped them in a bowl, poured heavy cream over them, and ate them all on the spot.

Yum.

[Abra]

Wowsers, that Berry Dinner sounds fabulous. I did get the announcement, but I was feeling berried-out at the time. Now I'm doubly so - today I made lavender-blueberry jam (really a wonderful combo, blueberries and lavender), blueberry liqueur, and a lavender-blueberry crumb cake for a friend's party. I still have LOTS more berries, but I fear that I'm running out of steam.

And there are some yummy salal berries in my yard as well, that I wish I would do something with.

[Smithy]

Am I the only person on the face of the earth who truly dislikes raspberries? Blackberries are fine, but raspberries ruin the whole thing. I've seen the lovliest chocolate pastries and cakes, and look forward to dispaching them at the first opportunity... then I smell them.

<snip>

Once I know that rasperries are in it, I just cannot stomach it. And it seems that every recipe containing chocolate also has raspberry as an ingredient. Drives me bonkers.

Heresy! You'd have been disappointed with our wedding cake, then: one layer of chocolate chip cake, one layer of chocolate (or was it white? it's been 7 years), married by a wild raspberry filling, covered with some luscious white (chocolate? I forget) frosting. Even people who don't normally like cake raved about it, and sometimes I dream of asking the baker to make another for us.

I know how you feel, though: I am revolted, and feel cheated, when I bite into a lovely piece of cake with chocolate frosting and discover it has *peanut butter* in it. Now, I like peanut butter. I like chocolate. But not together, except for the occasional Reese's cup. I think the cake baker's sister was truly offended when she asked what kind of cake I wanted for an office party and I specified chocolate frosting *without* the peanut butter.

[amccomb]

I've been berry crazy lately - brought a berry trifle to a get-together, threw some whole fresh raspberries into brownie batter and ended up with some amazing brownies frosted with chocolate ganache, made a 16 inch raspberry charlotte for a birthday party...let's see, what else? Made a wedding cake for some friends of mine with different mousse fillings (vanilla, banana, chocolate, lemon, lime, and raspberry) all topped with berries. I've been throwing berries into lemonade, and the other day made a raspberry puree (raspberries, a little sugar, orange juice, and chambord, pureed and pushed through a sieve) and added it into some club soda and ended up with a fizzy raspberry drink that people went crazy over.

[melmck]

Here in the Pacific Northwest, we are spoiled rotten with the bestest berries.. farmer picked early AM, delivered late AM. then when they arrive we shove as many as possible into our mouths and make insane noises. but what else is new! the display case is loaded with various berry treats, now we are moving into stone fruits--the heat wave has brought out all the sugars yumyumyum rrrggghhh aaahhhh see what i mean??