Apple Berry Turnover

 

Came across an elderberry apple turnover recipe on All That I'm Eating that looked delicious and gave it a spin with a few modifications. Very yummy.

1.5 sticks of frozen butter
1.5 cups of flour
2-3 apples (depending on size, I used Mutsu Crispin)
Spices (cloves, nutmeg, and/or cinnamon)
Handful of berries (I used a mix of blueberries and blackberries)
1 beaten egg
Powdered sugar (optional)
Salt (optional)
Lemon Juice (optional)

Shred your frozen butter like cheese and add to flour. Mix together until it looks like bread crumbs, then start adding water and mixing until you end up with a pie dough consistency. If it gets too sticky, just dust it with more flour. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Cut skinned apples into 1/2" cubes and cook on low with some water and a sprinkle of sugar and spice (to taste). When apples start to get soft, add berries and cook until they burst and apples turn red. I added some lemon juice for additional tartness, but if your apples are already tart, you can skip this step. Next time I might try using cranberries (or elderberries).

Divide dough into 4 pieces and roll out, adding flour if needed. Pile in your apple mix, fold over, and seal. Cut slits in top. Brush with egg mix. Salt lightly. Line cookie sheet with parchment paper and cook at 375F for 30 minutes.

Once done, dust with sugar.

Blueberry Variety Comparison

Bought these 35 beauties on clearance at Lowes for $3.50 each. They were super healthy looking. 16 Homebelle, 14 Premier, and 5 Powderblue blueberries. Despite the wonders of Subaru Forester cargo space, it's looking more and more like we need a truck, eh?

Day after purchase, we drove up to the property and started digging holes (well mostly the hubby dug holes, and I marked where and gathered mulch and organic material). Got as far as about 30 holes before bodies started giving out and severe weather arrived.

It certainly appears as if we're steering towards blueberries at this point. While we have a variety (sampling really) of many fruit trees and bushes, over half of all our plants are blueberries now, which is good since it seems to like our super acidic soil (4.7) better than anything else.

Wrote up a tally of the total varieties we now possess of blueberry (all Rabbitteye).

Variety	# We Have	Color	Berry Per Lb	Firm	Flavor	Vigor	Avg Lbs Per Acre	Harvest	Descript
Premier	17	9	382	8	10	9	7811	Late May, Early June	One of the best for fresh eating.
Home Belle	16	10?	433	5?	8?	9?	3979	June	1955 Variety with soft fruit and seeds and fair quality.
Powder Blue	6	10	336	9	9	9	7491
Tift Blue	4	9	361	9	9	19	8247	Late June, Early July	One of most popular
Climax	2	8	352	10	8	8	2857	May	Short concentrated harvest.

Blueberry Galette

Clearly I'm on a blueberry kick here but doesn't this look good? This came off this site.

Roll pastry dough into a large 12" circle 1/4" thick. Pile up 2 cups of blueberries and sprinkle with 1/2 cup of sugar. Fold dough up on edges. Egg wash the dough sides and bake at 375 degree for 20 minutes until the crust is golden and flaky.

Blueberry Coconut Tart

In my quest for yummy recipes to make with blueberries (also on a quest for coconut milk recipes), I came across this happy medley on project foodie

Makes 18 mini tarts

Coconut milk makes a richly decadent custard filling, replacing any need for eggs when using cornstarch for thickening.

• 1 recipe Key Lime Pie crust (see here)
• 1 tin (398 mL) coconut milk
• 1 vanilla bean or 1 Tbsp (15 mL) vanilla bean paste
• 1/2 cup (125 mL) sugar
• 1/4 cup (60 mL) cornstarch
• 1 cup (250 mL) fresh blueberries 

Preheat the oven to 350°f (175°c) and lightly grease a 24-cup mini muffin tin.

Prepare the graham crust and press it into the bottom and sides of the muffin cups. Bake for 10 minutes, then cool to room temperature.

Pour the coconut milk into a saucepot and scrape in the seeds of the vanilla bean (or stir in the vanilla bean paste). In a bowl, stir the sugar and cornstarch together and whisk into the coconut milk, then turn the heat to medium and whisk until the mixture comes to a simmer and thickens, about 6 minutes. Scrape the custard into a bowl, cover the surface of the custard with plastic wrap, and allow to cool to room temperature.

Once cooled, spoon the coconut filling into the mini tart shells and top each with 3 blueberries. Chill for at least 2 hours in the tin before popping them out to serve.
The tarts will keep in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.

You can make the coconut filling up to a day ahead of time and chill it before filling your tart shells. But before using the filling, it's best to purée it in a food processor or use an immersion blender to make it smooth.

Blueberries Jubilee

Picked this recipe up at the Pepper Place Farmers Market from a blueberry farmer in Mt Olive.

1 C Fresh (or Frozen) Blueberries
1/2 C Apple Juice

1 Tbsp Cornstarch

1 Tbsp Sugar

2 Tsp Lemon Juice

3 Tbsp Brandy

1 C Nonfat Ice Cream or Frozen Yogurt

Cinnamon

Combine apple juice and cornstarch, stirring well. Pour apple juice mixture into a medium skillet. Bring to boil, stirring constantly. Boil 1 minute. Remove from heat. Add sugar, lemon, cinnamon, stirring until dissolved. Gently stir in blueberries.

place brandy in a small saucepan, heat until warm. Pour brandy over mixture, and immediately ignite with a long match. Let flames die down.

Scoop ice cream / yogurt onto 2 dessert bowls. Spoon blueberry mixture over ice cream. Serve immediately.

Oxmoor House, Jan. 1995.

New Pear Trees And Blueberry Bushes

Ayres Pear

This weekend we planted 2 Europian pear trees: Ayres & Warren as well as 3 transplanted rabbitteye blueberry bushes from our apartment: Tiftblue, Premiere, & Climax. All of our other fruit trees have been semi-dwark (15' X 15') but these 2 pear trees are standard (40' tall x 25' wide), so they probably will look a little different and take a little longer to mature. 

Warren Pear



Trees In Ground

On Sept. 17, with alot of help from Mom and Dad, we got all the trees planted. Digging 20 "million dollar" holes, applying lime, planting, mulching, then watering is more work than it sounds, even for 4 people. Luckily it rained all week afterwards. We checked on the trees yesterday, and they look much perkier than  in the pot. A neighbor stopped by to explain how attracted the deer would be and that a deer hunting plot is across the street and numbers are up. I'm proceeding to investigate deer repellent methods.

New Fruit Trees

We bought our 1st set of trees on clearance from Lowes for $5 each. Hopefully they'll all turn out OK. They're all pretty large (6-8 ft tall), semi-dwarf, showing a little bit of leaf drop, are in 3.5 gallon jugs, and all on clearance, presumably b/c they've been sitting over there all summer waiting to be purchased. A few of the blueberries and pears we also picked up at *Petals from the Past in Jemison (full price), #Green Thumb in Decatur (half price) and peaches for free from a friend.

Pecans
*1 Excel - $30
*1 Amling - $30

Peaches

4 Belle of Georgia (white)- Orig $20

2 Unknown (Peach or Nectarines, same type leaf, not sure)- Orig $20
2 Elberta (yellow)- Orig $20
3 Neil (coworker) - Unknown but it's a white peach

1 Diamond Princess (white)- Orig $20
1 Hale Haven (yellow)- Orig $20

Nectarines

1 Sweet Pearl - Orig $30

1 Western Pride- Orig $30

Pear

1 Bartlett- Orig $20
*1 Warren - $22
*1 Ayers- $22

Apples

1 Jonathon Apple- Orig $20

1 Golden Delicious Apple - Orig $20
1 Red Delicious Apple - Orig $20

Apricot

2 Golden Sweet - Orig $30 each

Blueberry

1 Tiftblue - Orig $20
#1 Tiftblue - Orig $16
#1 Premiere - Orig $16
#1 Climax - Orig $16
*1 Powderblue - Orig $9

Total Original Price = $575

Our Price = $215

Actual Value = Hopefully something. They're looking pretty sad right now, 1 week after purchase. The plan is to wait till fall to plant, once they go dormant, if they survive that long :(