Picking & Cooking Blackberries
by Jeannie Travis
by Jeannie Travis
I envy those of you with a good safe place to pick blackberries…May try to roust the kids out and hunt up some myself…Surely along the floodplain at the base of these finger like ridges there would be berries…or along the river….Have been just freezing the blueberries , so don’t know what I’ll do with them,anyhow…LOVE the jam with all the seeds,if made with the small seeded wild berries…I already have them set up to go pick Boysenberries here in town…about 5 bucks for a half gallon, I guess they will eat as they pick…She has the tame blackberries, also….I need to start something like that, but would dearly love to find some wild ones to set out …Have seen some waist high briers with huge berries…still small seeded, growing along a railroad…Went back at transplanting time and they had cleaned the area off….VERY clean…Rats !
About the only thing I ever knew to do with the berries was to make a cobbler or dumplings. Cobbler is made by sweetening and heating the berries and pouring them into a deep dough lined pan…Just deeper than a regular pie pan…We used a puddin pan. Biscuit dough with extra butter shortening and a little sugar will do…Add some chunks of butter, flap the extra dough back over…tearing it if it’s gonna be doubled…Ok to poke these pieces down in the berries….Spray dough with Pam and sprinkle on a little sugar…Bake at 350 till browned and bubbling…
Dumplings …Make regular drop dumplings from self rising flour , but a little sugar could be added, a little butter shortening , and canned milk ….Add water to cover the berries ,heat and stir sugar into the berries..Use a stainless steel pan. Drop dumplings into the pan, shake the spoon around in the water once in awhile to keep it clean , but don’t mess up the dumplins. Save back about 2 TB of dough, add berry juice from the pan and stir into a slurry…add in a clear spot to the pan. Turn down as low as you can , cover, and in 20 minutes take the lid off and dish it up…A dollop of ice cream is good…
You can use any fruit for these dumplings , I suppose…Granny used to make them with canned strawberries…called it ‘cobbler ‘. …Guess you’ll have to look on the net for lotsa other recipes if you need them ….Mama used to can hundreds of quarts each summer, to make cobblers and dumplins…Sometimes if she was in a hurry we just ate them as is…Could make them into a sauce to pour over cake or hot buttered biscuits…Not even half bad in a bowl with sugar sprinkled on top and mashed a bit with a fork…
You can make the dumplings about the same way without sugar for chicken or other meat ….I guess I use about a heaping TBL. of dough for each one…Use self rising flour…Denture wearers usually remove the blackberry seed first…Just cook and put through the mill like you were making jelly…I didn’t think that was a possibility till I tried it…Was using tame berries, with those huge seed…Would work for Dewberries….
Man, am I getting berry picking fever here ! Maybe I can hold out till the kids get here ! At my age I surely don’t need to be sneaking all alone into the back of someones pasture to pick blackberries ! The mind boggles at the pitfalls….or pratfalls.
About the only thing I ever knew to do with the berries was to make a cobbler or dumplings. Cobbler is made by sweetening and heating the berries and pouring them into a deep dough lined pan…Just deeper than a regular pie pan…We used a puddin pan. Biscuit dough with extra butter shortening and a little sugar will do…Add some chunks of butter, flap the extra dough back over…tearing it if it’s gonna be doubled…Ok to poke these pieces down in the berries….Spray dough with Pam and sprinkle on a little sugar…Bake at 350 till browned and bubbling…
Dumplings …Make regular drop dumplings from self rising flour , but a little sugar could be added, a little butter shortening , and canned milk ….Add water to cover the berries ,heat and stir sugar into the berries..Use a stainless steel pan. Drop dumplings into the pan, shake the spoon around in the water once in awhile to keep it clean , but don’t mess up the dumplins. Save back about 2 TB of dough, add berry juice from the pan and stir into a slurry…add in a clear spot to the pan. Turn down as low as you can , cover, and in 20 minutes take the lid off and dish it up…A dollop of ice cream is good…
You can use any fruit for these dumplings , I suppose…Granny used to make them with canned strawberries…called it ‘cobbler ‘. …Guess you’ll have to look on the net for lotsa other recipes if you need them ….Mama used to can hundreds of quarts each summer, to make cobblers and dumplins…Sometimes if she was in a hurry we just ate them as is…Could make them into a sauce to pour over cake or hot buttered biscuits…Not even half bad in a bowl with sugar sprinkled on top and mashed a bit with a fork…
You can make the dumplings about the same way without sugar for chicken or other meat ….I guess I use about a heaping TBL. of dough for each one…Use self rising flour…Denture wearers usually remove the blackberry seed first…Just cook and put through the mill like you were making jelly…I didn’t think that was a possibility till I tried it…Was using tame berries, with those huge seed…Would work for Dewberries….
Man, am I getting berry picking fever here ! Maybe I can hold out till the kids get here ! At my age I surely don’t need to be sneaking all alone into the back of someones pasture to pick blackberries ! The mind boggles at the pitfalls….or pratfalls.