Gourmet Meals For Less

Summer is just not summer without berry picking....

"Late August, given heavy rain and sun  for a full week, the blackberries would ripen.  At  first, just one, a glossy purple clot among others, red, green, hard as a knot.  You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it leaving stains upon the tongue and lust for picking...."

Seamus Heaney

  

Ahhh...Berry Picking, the quintessential summer activity. There is something satisfying about picking those sweet delicious little jewels off the the vines they have been clinging to, and watching your pail fill up with all of that berry goodness.  Monday, my dearest friend Robin and I took the girl and her dearest friend to a wonderful little blackberry vineyard located near us.  This place is the epitome of the small country farm.  The kind of place located off a gravel road

 
 
Where you're greeted with signs like these

 

 
 

If "God will see you" doesn't stop all of those rogue "blackberry pickers gone wild" criminals, I'm sure the Winchester and the Big Black Dog would do the trick...I love living in Kentucky!

This little corner of blackberry heaven is owned and operated by the Barkers.  Not only do they have rows of beautiful, thornless blackberry bushes

 

but they also produce their own blackberry wine!  You can stop in the winery

 

 where you can get a sample of their delicious blackberry wine, what could be better than a little shot of blackberry wine before you commence to picking? 

Mrs. Barker manages the counter where she stands ready to weigh your blackberries, share some recipes, hand out samples of wine and gives away free icy pops to hot, sweaty berry juiced covered little girls.  You will often find Mr. Barker buzzing around the fields in his golf cart or keeping Mrs. Barker company sitting off to the side in a folding chair waiting for customers

 

  If you visit Barker's Blackberry Hill Winerybe sure to bring lots of buckets with you.  You will quickly fill them with berry goodness.  We picked 16 pounds of berries lickety-split!

 

These little gems were just waiting for us to pluck them off, and we did not disappoint

 

We filled our buckets to overflowing, and we had the evidence to prove it

 

 

Our trip to Barker's Blackberry Hill Winery was such a special treat!  I am so excited to see what great recipes we can come up with for our blackberries.  Starting first with some blackberry cobbler and of course some blackberry jam, so we can enjoy their goodness far into the winter.  I want to invite my Northern Kentucky neighbors to take a visit out to the Barkers.  Mrs. Barker said that they will have berries for only a week or two more, so don't delay! 

And if you can promise to behave yourself while blackberry picking and not cause any trouble or steal any blackberries (the one or two or three we popped in our mouths don't count do they) than you will kindly be thanked for your patronage

 

and invited to come back next year...I highly suggest you take them up on that offer and visit the Barkers again and again, you won't be disappointed! 

  Cost: $1.75 per lb.  Compare that to $2.00 for a a small little container at the grocery store!

 

 

A Bountiful Summer...in more ways than one!

What a crazy summer!!  In June we took a two week vacation through the South, and then we were so fortunate to have my cousin and her beautiful family visit for a week and they were able to overlap with my sister, brother-in-law and my oh so precious, precocious and absolutely adorable nephew and niece (can you tell I'm super duper bias...grin!) who were also here for a week. You can read all about our wonderful adventures while they were here at my sister's blog....

Southern In My Heart

She has done a great job of making my home seem like a vacation destination (My kids might disagree with her as they are downstairs right now doing dishes and helping with laundry) and I love the good publicity for the great state of Kentucky!

 

(My sweet niece enjoying an icy pop)

(My nephew enjoying his first moonpie!)

We were also so excited to get to know the niece of one of my bestest friends this past month.  She was visiting from the Golden State for a month...she actually left there to visit us in the Bluegrass so hey we can't be all that bad!  This niece happened to become a "good friend" of my son, so we were blessed to have her around quite a bit and loved every second of it.  So to my "beautiful, adorable, and precious new friend" thank you for some great times this summer for our whole family and especially for one member in particular ;o)  We miss you!

To wrap up this whirlwind month my dear sweet hubby agreed to drive me to Missouri for my 20th high school reunion (I know you're gasping right now cause there's no way I look old enough for a 20th reunion... right??.. cricket ... cricket) 

We drove down in back in 3 days and in between partied our tooshies off...we were actually up 23 hours on Friday including the 9 hour drive...this is when my age started showing.  I don't think I'm quite recovered yet but it was SO GOOD to see my friends.  Thank you Hillcrest class of 1990 for a great reunion.  It was so wonderful to see each and every one one of you and thank you to the reunion committee (you know who you are) for putting together such a great event and thank you to my BFF Tracy for loving me all these years and the ability to pick up right where we left up...I love you girl!
 

So I promise there is food related content in here somewhere...when we walked in the door from my reunion we came home to this...

Ummm, yes that is from ONE WEEKEND folks!!  I'm telling ya a garden pays off. This picture doesn't even do our weekend harvest justice because I couldn't get it all in the picture.  So yeah, um what to do with all of this.  The one thing I've learned from gardening is that it's a SIN to let any of it go bad.  When you've toiled over the soil to get those little plants to grow and produce you don't want to lose even the smallest little cherry tomato.  So I had to come up with a plan...quickly.

We decided right away to pickle the cucumbers and squash (if you've never had pickled squash stay tuned you're in for a treat) but I will confess I have never canned tomatoes.  Last year I froze them (which is a great option) but this year I wanted to try my hand at making homemade tomato sauce.  I will tell you after this adventure that I have a new appreciation for Ragu.  It is a lot of work making it from scratch, but so worth it because for one thing it was FREE, and for another it's so much better for you and better tasting.

I used this great recipe from Better Homes and Garden.  I had only enough tomatoes to make two pints of sauce...I had no idea how many tomatoes it takes to make a jar of tomato sauce!  But I see many more pints in my future as we seem to haul in a basketful every few days.  I loved this recipe because I also had all of the herbs to put in it...see that herb garden comes in handy!  If you have tomatoes growing and you don't know what to do with them all be brave and can your own tomato sauce.  That way you can enjoy your harvest all year long!

Keeping it in the family....

Um yeah, so good grief my hair looks really blonde here...it was three years ago, 
I've toned it down a little since then ;o)

 

My very talented sister, Vanessa, has started a blog that combines "Southern Sensibility with Northewest Living".  She is an incredible writer, decorator, cook, wife and mom...oh and of course an awesome sister!  You can check out her first few entries at

Southern Comfort

And if you stick around you are bound to read some very funny posts about my nephew and niece...their antics could fill a whole blog by themselves!

So head on over and say "hi" to my sweet sister!  And if you are in the South take over some sunshine and heat with you,  I hear the Northwest could use some right now.

 

Enjoy!