Early summer means blueberry madness

Summer sends me into a blue frenzy. Blueberries, that is. While they are in season, I pick, buy local and cook with blueberries every chance I get. Some of this abundance spills over into my freezer for future eating, but mostly I enjoy eating fresh berries, plain or cooked into both sweet and savory dishes.

Blueberries are one of those wonderful foods that taste good and are good for us. Each little berry is a powerhouse of Vitamin C, fiber, and more and one cup of fresh berries contains only 80 calories.

From late May into July, there are enough local berries for picking and buying to eat them daily and still freeze some to add their early summer essence to colder days. The Carolina Blueberry Association has a nice listing of varieties that grow here and when they ripen. (http://www.carolinablueberry.com/).

Tom Melton of the Clemson Extension Agency advises the rabbiteye variety for those who want to grow their own. He notes that the website, www.smallfruits.org, offers lots of good information about growing the bushes. However, if like me, you would rather rely on others to grow them, there are plenty of local resources for purchasing and picking from farms to farmer’s markets to local grocery stores that carry berries with a “Carolina” or “South Carolina grown” label.

Many Waccamaw Market vendors sell blueberries from local farms. Indigo Farms sells their berries at Myrtle’s Market in Myrtle Beach. The sidebar has information on three area farms where you can pick your own! No matter where you pick or buy it is good to follow this advice of the U.S. Highbush Blueberry Council website (www. http://www.blueberrycouncil.org/):

“When you buy fresh blueberries, look for berries that are firm, dry, plump and smooth-skinned, with a silvery surface bloom and no leaves or stems. Size isn’t an indicator of maturity, but color is – berries should be deep purple-blue to blue-black. Remember, reddish blueberries aren’t ripe, and won’t ripen once they are picked but you can use them in cooking. Avoid blueberries that look soft or shriveled or have any signs of mold. If you see juice stains in a container of blueberries, the fruit might be bruised.”

Blue ribbon (and many red and white) winner and one of this year’s judges of the Burgaw (NC) Blueberry festival, Ann Mendenhall, find the little berry a great inspiration in the kitchen.

Mendenhall freezes berries at their peak, right after picking so she can use them all year long. She says, “My method of freezing blueberries is to place in a single layer on a lipped baking sheet that is lined with waxed paper, freeze several hours then place 2 cups frozen berries in freezer bags. Use still frozen berries in baking with a few extra minutes added to suggested baking time.”

While the most obvious way to enjoy blueberries is to eat them like candy, the next most obvious is in .sweets like biscuits, cakes, pies and more. Ann Mendenhall has shared two of her award winning sweet recipes with us. However, this nutrient dense powerful little blue edible dynamo is also delightful addition in savory entrée and side dishes.

Samantha Tipton, executive director of the Waccamaw Market Cooperative, said she has two “go-to” ways to gobble up blueberries. “I make toast, load it up with peanut butter and blueberries.” Her other fave use for blueberries is to top overnight oats with a handful of berries. (Overnight Oats are 1/2 cup rolled oats, 1/2 milk, 2 tablespoons of peanut butter, scoop of chia seeds, maple syrup to sweeten. Combine everything in a mason jar and refrigerate overnight.) Adding berries to a salad with greens and goat cheese and dressing it with balsamic vinegar and olive oil or serving blueberries speared onto a bit of brie on a cracker are two of the other simple ways to incorporate these lapis colored gems into your mealtime.

Food Blogger Michelle Price of www.honestandtruly.com takes adding the berries to foods a step further with her homemade syrup (see below for her recipe). She says, “Blueberries are great in both sweet and savory dishes. One of the things I love about this syrup is that it is so versatile. You can just as easily use this for an ice cream topping as mix it into some balsamic vinegar and olive oil to create a great salad dressing with a little tang and a unique flavor. If you can’t pick up good fresh blueberries, you can always find them frozen and swap them out in this and in so many other recipes.”

With that splash of balsamic vinegar and olive oil, the syrup also becomes a sauce to pour over sautéed or roasted chicken breasts; I think the sweet flavor contrasts nicely with chicken either cooked simply with rosemary, salt, pepper and shallots. Her syrup is a great starting point for infusing berry flavor into countless recipes. Of course, you can simply add whole berries to dishes too. Local berry grower Bruce Downs likes to add berries to roasted pork tenderloin. He simply mashes up some berries with olive oil and cracked pepper and puts it on the pork. Yum!

There are as many ways to enjoy this little gem as your imagination can offer.

This story was originally published June 14, 2016 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Early summer means blueberry madness."