Looks like I fell off the edge of the world for a while there. It was an unplanned hiatus, brought on by minor crises and busy-ness. Here’s the tale, and a “recipe” for blueberries and cream.

Mainly it was the June Dental Crisis

For months I’d been having problems with “sinus infections” and tooth sensitivity and swelling/pain in my upper left jaw. “Sinus infections” is in quotes because I thought they were at the time; now I’m fairly certain some of them were caused by the tooth and not the other way around (“Your tooth hurts? Oh, that must be from a sinus infection”).

It all began with sensitivity in an upper molar last fall. Since I did have a raging sinus infection at the time, my dentist logically ascribed it to that, and told me to get in touch again if it didn’t go away. Go away it did, a few weeks later. Yay! I thought. It got better!

But then from that point on, that area of my mouth was odd. The gums there were prone to infection and swelling, and I babied that tooth’s area with constant flossing and brushing. Then one day, a sliver of the tooth broke off, inexplicably. My dentist had to replace the filling in that tooth and then it became really painful. It all seemed weird.

The new filling came loose after a few weeks and my dentist referred me to an endodontist for a root canal. When I arrived at his office I saw that some of what the $1,000 root canal fee was paying for was mood lighting and leather dentist chairs. However, I’m not complaining, because it was also paying for some really advanced equipment and the endo was not only very skilled and good at explaining things, but also quite relaxing to look at.

After some high-tech x-rays the endo did a football-style play by play for me, drawing lines on the monitor that had my x-rays on it to help illustrate what he was talking about.

That was probably my favorite part.

The giant top molar — you have one too; it’s the one 2 in front of your wisdom tooth, or 1 in front if they’re out; go touch it with your tongue now. I’ll wait. Welcome back. So the top molar was cracked, and cracked so deeply he couldn’t work on it.

“You said you experienced strong sensitivity last fall?”
*nod*
“And some weeks later it just went away?”
*nod*
“Yeah, that’s when the tooth died. All your problems since then are because of that.”

I was very sad over my dead tooth. And sad that I still had to pay $540 to not get a root canal. And sadder still that it had to be extracted. The next day I had it pulled. I’m seeing an implant dentist in September to get that business going, which will involve more annoying procedures and more healing periods.

I shouldn’t complain. I rarely get sick. I have no health problems. I’m really glad the worst problem I’ve ever had was a dead tooth. But meh. I can still be annoyed.

This affected the blog

Two ways this affected Shiny Cooking:

1. I didn’t want to post. I couldn’t eat properly, because of pain before the extraction and because of healing gum tissue afterwards. So I didn’t want to cook or try new things or talk about something I couldn’t enjoy much anymore. This was pretty much all of 2010 really, given that I was having constant little infections all winter/spring. It kept me from posting much or wanting to post. I was just sad every time I checked in here or read other food bloggers and wanted to try and do things but couldn’t.

2. Money. Cooking and taking pictures while cooking takes time, but that’s not too much worse than non-blogging-oriented cooking. The posts themselves though, they take quite a bit of time, from writing them to picking out photos and optimizing them to formatting the recipes properly in WordPress.

I get paid for none of this. I get a pittance from my sponsor’s advertising and usually when I post Foodbuzz-themed events I’m getting a stipend that’s quite nice for one post’s work but it’s not enough in the long haul.

Normally this isn’t too huge a problem but with the recent spate of medical expenses plus over $2,000 coming up for the implant I’ve been pushed to neglect Shiny Cooking in favor of other projects that provide some money. I don’t want to have to do that, but that’s the way it is. I’ve been considering some ways I could generate some revenue through Shiny Cooking, but that’s a topic for another post.

For now, you know what’s been going on. As for the future? I have dozens and dozens of post topics saved up, literally dozens. Shiny Cooking will live, because I can’t stop posting forever. In fact, the bug to document everything I eat is coming back.

blueberries and cream

We went blueberry picking at Montrose Orchards last Friday. It was hot and muggy and generally pretty miserable, but I got a little over 10 pounds of blueberries.

The first thing I did with the blueberries, after eating gobs of them by the handful, was make fresh blueberry pie in a walnut-oat pie crust.

The second thing I did with the blueberries was “make” blueberries and cream. I noticed I had a half-pint of unopened heavy cream in the fridge and knew I had no plans for it. So we poured a bit of it over a big bowl of blueberries, spooned on a teaspoonful of sugar, and it was good.

And that’s my return-from-hiatus recipe. Blueberries. Cream. Sugar. Ripe, taut-skinned blueberries bursting under your bite, bathed in silky cream and sweetened just a bit.

Go try some.

Blueberry pie ranks right up there. Number two after sour cherry pie, for sure. I’d always had blueberry pie that was baked, but the blueberries this year are so fabulous — large, and the perfect sweet-tart combination — that I wanted to do one that was more strawberry pie-style.

In other words, blueberries mixed with a thickening agent and set inside a prebaked shell of some sort. So the flavor of the fresh berries would burst through.

KAF came through! That’s the King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking book. Remember that, because I’m not going to repeat it.

The original recipe in KAF called for 1 cup of sugar. Based on scientific evidence — Mom had just made a fresh blueberry pie using another recipe calling for 3/4 cup sugar and turns out is was JUST. TOO. SWEET. — I cut it to 1/4 cup. I don’t know why you’d want more, unless you’re some kind of stereotypical sugar-loving animal whose name escapes me at the moment. Plus if you use the walnut-oat crust, you’re getting some more sugar there.

why is there no picture of the entire pie?

Because I was madly baking it, and cookies, and zucchini bread, before going to Gun Lake. And I didn’t get a picture of it before we half-demolished it. It was chilly, and dark, and rainy. Poor light for food porn anyway.

These were truly the best I could do. They do not do the pie justice.

How about some lakeside fun distraction before the recipe

G & B hurtling towards icy lake water. Have fun, guys.

Yeah, that looks fun. And warm, judging by that windbreaker. And not at all so windy there are whitecaps on the lake. Newp.

When the windsock is horizontal, that’s a clue.

It was sunny like this for the five minutes each day between when the sun lowered between the cloud cover and the trees in the west. Yay.

But we got to play games! Like this one, Last Days of Pompeii, and Ticket to Ride: Europe, and Ghost Party. I liked TtR:E more than I thought, particularly because I kicked ass and totally won our second game. J thought Pompeii was “mean” just because you throw people into a volcano. Hmph. (Side note: Becky is coming back to town very very soon, bearing games like Citadels, Diamant, and Power Grid, none of which I’ve played and all of which I’m drooling to play. So. Excited.)

Oh, yeah. You came for pie.

fresh blueberry pie

This recipe is adapted from King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking, aka My Favorite Baking Cookbook Ever. Reprinted with permission.

prep: 20 minutes
to table: 90 minutes
servings: 8

1 prebaked pastry shell or walnut-oat crust
4 cups (1-1/4 pounds) fresh blueberries
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup (1 ounce) cornstarch
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 tablespoon cold water
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Combine 2 cups of the blueberries with the sugar in a large saucepan. Mix the cornstarch with the lemon juice and water, stirring till smooth, and add to the blueberries.

Bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring frequently, until thickened. The liquid will quickly turn hot pink, and then deepen as the blueberries release their juices. This cornstarch mixture thickens really quickly and well. Remove from heat, and add the remaining uncooked berries, stirring to combine. Stir in the vanilla.

Refrigerate for 1 hour.

Spoon the blueberry filling into the baked pie shell. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

Variation: You can make this with frozen blueberries instead.

Skip ahead to to the blue text if you want the instructions without the incoherent babbling.

Flash freezing has been done in the food industry for ages to quickly preserve and seal in nutrients and freshness. It’s why nutritionists say frozen seafood, vegetables, and so forth are technically “fresher” than their fresh cousins you find in the grocery store.

Of course, if you’re practicing locavore-oriented shopping, you don’t have that problem now, do you? It’s not hard, and you don’t have to be a hardass about it. You’re just growing a garden, or befriending people who do, or participating in a CSA. Okay, I had to act like I knew what a CSA was. Hey look, it stands for Community Supported Agriculture.

Oh, wow. There’s one in my area. Crap, now you know where I live. No stalking!

Back to locavore stuff. You’re doing the above, and/or you’re looking for locally-grown produce at the supermarket, you’re befriending people with chickens for eggs, etc. It doesn’t have to be all intensive like the people who do “we’ll only eat anything grown within 100 miles” experiments.

So if you’re me, one locavore thing you’ve done recently is go to a local orchard and buy or pick blueberries. You picked a lot of blueberries. And you might as well throw some in the freezer for winter.

There’s something sparkly about pulling berries out of the freezer in the dead of winter, and making a smoothie, or cobbler, or pie. In like, February. You want to do this with your pretty local berries.

Note: This method can be used with nearly anything solid. I freeze tablespoons of tomato paste this way. Adobo chiles. Some people flash freeze lemon slices, or mushrooms. I don’t know if I trust frozen mushrooms, but they can’t hurt if being thrown into a lasagna or something.

flash freezing blueberries is easy peasy. Here’s how.

1. Wash the suckers. Dump the fresh blueberries into a clean sink filled with cool water. Slosh them around. Fish them out, and spread in a single layer on towel- or paper towel-lined sheet pans. Allow the blueberries to air dry.

2. Line the sheet pans with waxed or parchment paper. This will keep any berries that might still be wet from freezing directly to the pan.

3. Spread the blueberries in an even layer on the paper-lined pans.

4. Pop them into the freezer. Don’t stack them. The goal is to keep those little suckers as separated as possible so they freeze faster. My freezer is kind of scary, isn’t it?

5. Wait a few hours. Play Pandemic: American Swine to pass the time.

6. Pull the frosty frozen blueberries out of the freezer. Marvel at how they clink like marbles. Plot ways to shoot them at unsuspecting TSA agents.

7. Dump the clinking frozen blueberries into a freezer bag. Get a straw and suck, suck, suck the air out of the bag until you get lightheaded or pass out, whichever comes first.

If you have one of those fancy vacuum sealers, by all means use that instead.

8. Label the bag with what it is and the month and year. This cannot be stressed enough. Sure, you think you can recognize a damn bag of blueberries when you see it NOW, but next year? You’ll be wondering what the hell those dark lumps are. Example: Blueberries. 08/09. Do it. Trust me on this.

9. Pop the bag into the freezer and pencil blueberry pie in your calendar for January.

I have a confession to make.

I cannot bring myself to bake or cook with fresh berries.

Why not? Their season is so short, it seems such a waste to transform them with heat, when frozen berries will do the job just as well. And you can whip out frozen blueberries in the dead of winter, anytime.

But fresh berries in the dead of winter? You know they’re out of season, so they’re being shipped thousands of miles, and hey! *snaps fingers* we’re trying to eat more local here. In that process of being shipped across continents, they’re losing freshness and flavor, and won’t be worth much fresh anyway, in my opinion.

Why not practice a more seasonally-aware cuisine? Gorge on fresh when it’s available, and freeze or preserve once you’ve gotten sick on fresh blueberries. (Tomorrow I’ll be freezing blueberries, and show you how, which is hardly necessary, as it’s so damn easy you’ll wonder why you haven’t done it before.)

In the spirit of practicing a more seasonally-aware cuisine, we’re now eating 99% blueberries and sweet corn. Ha ha.

13 ways of looking at a blueberry

Simple, as usual, is better. There are approximately 3 general ways to go with fresh blueberries. First is sweet, and mixed with dairy and/or grains. Second and third are savory, in salads or salsa.

We’ll get the obvious out of the way first.

1. Blueberries plain in a bowl, eaten with a spoon or by the handful. See the picture at the top of this post. My favorite. Sprinkle with sugar for more sweetness.

2. Top breakfast cereal or oatmeal with blueberries.

3. Top pancakes with blueberries. Okay, I’ll allow you to make blueberry pancakes with fresh blueberries in them if you want. Just this once.

4. Blueberries in a bowl, with milk, or half and half, or cream. Add sugar if you insist.

5. Crush blueberries slightly with a potato masher, and stir into yogurt. Drizzle with honey or maple syrup. Thanks to Sarah of Yummy Smells.

6. Another from Sarah of Yummy Smells: Mash blueberries with a touch of honey, and layer atop peanut butter on graham crackers. It’s rustic blueberry jam!

7. Microwave vanilla ice cream for 10 seconds. Sprinkle fresh blueberries on top, and stir in.

8. Remember that strawberry feta salad? Make it with blueberries instead of strawberries.

9. In fact, add blueberries to spinach salad too. Try spinach, blueberries, sesame seeds, goat cheese, and a sweet balsamic vinaigrette.

10. Make a parfait layering plain or vanilla yogurt, blueberries, and granola. Add wheat germ and banana slices if you like.

11. Top lemon, lime, or vanilla pudding with blueberries.

12. Blueberry and corn salad. Blueberries like corn, which is handy since they’re in season at the same time. Cut the corn off of a cooked or grilled ear or two, add a cup or two of blueberries, some fresh basil, a bit of olive oil and lemon juice, and salt and pepper. I’m probably going to make this and turn it into a post. :p

13. Blueberry salsa. Chop up blueberries, red onion, bell pepper, jalapeño pepper, cilantro, splash in some lime juice, season with salt and pepper. Serve atop grilled fish.