Summertime Cooking

ON SALE, 99 cents a pint, limit 3 pints. Blueberries on sale? A buck a pint? Be still my fruit loving heart. I could make pie again or...I could try something new. I had come across a recipe for blueberry butter prowling around the web. You know, like apple butter but for blueberries. All that you need is a big pile of blueberries, some sugar and spices and your trusty crockpot. The instructions can be found at the Pick Your Own blog.

These were pretty nice blueberries too. From New Jersey I think. Nine pints of fruit slowly cooked in the crockpot resulting in ten little jars of Blueberry Butter.

But what to use it with first? Luckily the culinary godmother has sent me a recipe that seemed to be perfect for the occasion....Bacon-Jalapeño Cornbread.

Lord knows I've got the cast iron skillet and the bacon goes without saying. And yes, I did put the jalapeños in despite my reluctance but I figured the bacon would rule the cornbread.

(OK, so I went really light on the jalapeños, sue me.)

The blueberry butter turned out well, nice and thick but I think next time I'll use one of the lower sugar content versions. I didn't get as much of the blueberry flavor that I wanted but the constituency is just right. It would be great in some thick Greek yogurt or slopped on a biscuit. Or bacon jalapeño cornbread. But if you're going to run the crockpot for twelve hours in the middle of a brutal two week heat wave, set it out in the garage because the ac bill is going to be high enough as it is and no pile of 99 cent blueberries will save you.