Tricks, Tips and a Recipe
The Beautiful Blueberry
By: Leanne Ely
Happy Tuesday, Y’all!
It’s time once again for Tricks, Tips and a Recipe. Today you’ll learn a tip, a trick and you’ll get a great recipe to try it out with. Neat, huh?
Don’t forget tomorrow is the radio show, Saving Dinner with the Dinner Diva! The show is on every Wednesday at noon EST and is almost always LIVE. Bookmark this page and show up tomorrow–www.blogtalkradio.com/flylady and remember you can call in LIVE with your questions–about food, cooking, nutrition, anything you can think of! If you can’t listen live, you can always listen to the archives and now you can even send in your questions and listen to Leanne answer them on a future show! Just email Dear Leanne at Saving Dinner dot com.
It’s blueberry month, so what else would we focus on? Blueberries are beautiful, sweet, and pumped with fiber with only 80 calories per cup. With all the health benefits that blueberries offer, it’s no wonder they’re becoming more popular all the time.
One of my favorite super foods, blueberries are an excellent source of vitamin C, manganese, dietary fiber and tons of antioxidants. You know they are ready to enjoy by their deep blue or purple black color and their silvery sheen.
Fresh blueberries are harvested by hand and the machine processed ones are sold as frozen—who knew? Recently a higher percentage of blueberries are being harvested fresh because of the great demand for the bodacious blueberry, hurray!
Here’s Today’s TRICK:
Storing blueberries is easy if you know how. First make sure you selected the ripest berries, then remove the leaves and stems.
Do not wash your blueberries before storing them, this will cause your berries to become tough. Simply pack into air tight containers making sure to leave a little space at the top for expansion. If you wish, you can spread them out onto a cookie sheet then pack into containers after frozen. Wash before using.
Here’s a TIP:
Add a little extra excitement to your chicken salad lunch by sprinkling some blueberries over the top. I love the contrast of fresh blueberries sprinkled over the top of cut up cantaloupe.
And your RECIPE:
Zesty Blueberry Barbecue Sauce
Yield: 2 cups BBQ Sauce
2 cups blueberries
1/2 cup water
3/4 cup ketchup
1/2 cup cider vinegar
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
1 tablespoon chili powder
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
In a saucepan, combine all ingredients stirring into water slowly. Bring mixture to a full boil over medium-high heat, stirring continuously. Reduce heat to low and simmer, only stirring occasionally. Sauce will thicken slightly and will have chunks of blueberries. Cool and refrigerate until ready to use. Great on pork, chicken or fish.
Do you have any great ways to use this wonderful berry? Tell us here!
