Blackberry Cobbler II

This morning, shortly after sunrise and while the dew was still on everything it could be on, my husband had an "appointment" with his brother... to go wild blackberry picking.  Yep, at 6 A.M.-- sharp!!   This morning's temperature in the low 50's felt better than the 80°  we have now that things have heated up a bit.  

What to do with the berries?   Well, a couple of things for the "first berries" of this season--  eat some fresh, put some in a bowl with milk/sugar, and... make a cobbler.  Fresh out of the oven, eat it as shown above, or,... add ice cream like this:

Serves 4
(This recipe is just a weeeeeeeee bit different than the other blackberry cobbler recipe I've posted on this blog.)

INGREDIENTS:

1 cup white sugar
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 and 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
...
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter, melted
1 cup whole milk
...
2 cups fresh or frozen blackberries.  I used "fresh".
...
2 tablespoons more of white sugar (for sprinkling on top of batter before baking).  When sprinkling the sugar on top, try to stay away from the edges of the dish so that it will not "crystallize" around the hot sides of the glass baking dish.

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat oven to 350-degrees.  Spray a 3-quart baking dish with non-stick spray, or grease it with butter.  (You can double this recipe and bake it in a 9x13" glass baking dish for 60-65 minutes.)

In a medium bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients (sugar, flour, baking power and salt). 
Add the milk and melted butter to the combined dry ingredients; stir only until well blended.
Pour the batter into the baking dish.  
Rinse the blackberries and pat them dry.  Sprinkle the berries evenly on top of the batter.  Sprinkle the extra 2 tablespoons of sugar evenly over the berries.  
Bake until light brown and bubbling. For my oven, this was 50 minutes.   (You could sprinkle another tablespoon or so of sugar on top for about the last ten minutes of baking, as shown in the photo below--  BUT!, I do NOT think that's necessary!)

Eat plain, or top with whatever 

kind of "good stuff" you like!!!!

Blueberry Pancakes

With this easy "from scratch" recipe, there is no need 

to keep a box of pancake mix on hand.  

At least, that's what I think!

Don't let the directions make you think this recipe 

isn't "quick" to put together because,...it really IS!!!

This past week, I took a little friend blueberry picking.  It was a new experience for her and, for myself, it was an experience I wanted to repeat.   We ate so many of them before they were off their bushes for a few hours.  YUM!!!  Others went into two kinds of muffins, and these into pancakes.  More of........ YUM!!!

At $3.00/lb., they were still more economical 

than paying close to that much for just a pint.

INGREDIENTS:

(This recipe makes about six pancakes the size of those shown in the picture.  You can easily double it for more.)

• 3/4 cup milk (I did not use low-fat milk) 
• 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar (shake well before measuring)
• 1 egg
• 2 tablespoons melted butter
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 2 tablespoons white sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking power
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup blueberries (I used fresh)
• Cooking spray

DIRECTIONS:

1. Add the vinegar to the milk and let sit for about five minutes to "curdle".
2. During the five minutes that the milk is "souring", combine all of the dry ingredients and whisk together well-- the flour, white sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt.  Set aside.
3. When milk is ready, whisk the egg and melted butter into it.
4. Pour the dry mixture into the mixture of liquid ingredients. Mix only until quite smooth.  Add berries.  Stir in.
5. Heat pan or griddle to medium heat and lightly spray with non-stick cooking spray.
6. Pour 1/3 cupfuls of batter* on the prepared hot surface.

7.  Flip to finish.   Serve with whatever you desire.

*The deep color of the yolks in the free-range eggs 

we have is what made the batter/pancakes 

more yellow than usual.

Above:  If you don't have extra berries to garnish 

the plate, that's okay, too!!!!  Believe me!, there's 

nothing wrong with eating them just like this!!!

Ziti-Chicken-Zucchini Pasta Bake ("Lasagna Wannabe"-- sort of!)

This maybe doesn't look like the traditional lasagna, but its taste is SO similar!   A friend, Bruce, gave us plenty of Pepper Jack cheese; Pam's garden gave us the zucchini; and some left-over pieces of rotisserie chicken were just waiting to be used in.............. something.   This recipe used all of that.

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 lb. box of ZITI or PENNE PASTA (uncooked)
• 2 of 23.5 ounce jars of your favorite pasta sauce
• 1 medium onion, chopped medium-fine
• 10 oz. Pepper Jack cheese, grated
• 2-4 chicken breasts, cooked and diced (I used some left-over rotisserie chicken).  If need be, I'm sure you could get by with just one cupful of small pieces of chicken.
• 1 and 1/2  OR 2 cups shredded zucchini

If you used a larger/deeper baking dish, I can see putting a thin layer of cottage OR ricotta cheese in here, too.  Also, mushrooms and various other vegetables.

DIRECTIONS:

Cook dry pasta in boiling water until "medium soft" (I boiled mine for 11 minutes).  Drain.  Set aside.

In a 9x13" baking dish that's been sprayed with non-stick oil, layer the ingredients as follows.  While layering, I VERY LIGHTLY salted and peppered each individual layer(s) of pasta, and the zucchini:

• Spaghetti Sauce
• Chicken
• Onion
• Pasta
• Spaghetti sauce
• 1/2 amount of grated cheese
• Zucchini
• Pasta
• Spaghetti sauce
• Remaining amount of cheese

My dish was VERY full.  In fact, after I added each layer of the cooked Penne pasta, I needed to press it down a bit.  When I was done "layering", I took a spatula and gently moved ingredients a little away from around the edges so that the sauce would have more room as it heated.  Then, to be "kinder" to my oven, I set this dish on a dark kind of shallow baking sheet for... just in case it bubbled over.   But,... it didn't.

I baked this 9x13" batch for about 45 minutes 
(at 350-degrees) when I saw little bubbles around 
the edges.  Before serving, let set for 
about 10 minutes before dishing up.