Raspberries

We went raspberry picking yesterday morning at Navarino Orchard.  It was cool and damp.  We got there just after they opened and no one else came the entire time we were in the patch.  The kid tried one and declared that it was good.  For a while she was picking with us and singing a berry picking song.  It was cute.  I wish I remembered the words.  Then she got sick of it and decided that she was hungry/tired/didn't feel good, so we called it quits.  We picked just over 2 pounds. We had no idea what we were going to do with them.

The taste of fresh raspberries is worth the effort of going to find them.  They are sweet and the flavor is way better than anything you find on a grocery store shelf.

A friend sent me an article on freezing berries from Cooks Illustrated.  We froze a quart using the sugar syrup method. 

I made a smoothie and 3 frozen berry pops using the last cup of yogurt in the container, about 1/3 c frozen blue berries, a cup of raspberries, splashes of lemon juice and vanilla extract, a T. of sugar and 3T of simple syrup.  There are only 3 pops because I could not find the last stick and cap. The kid pronounced the smoothie to be as good as McDonald's and took it.  We have some work to do with her.

The farmer used a cup of raspberries and a cup of blueberries in a Berry Buckle from All Recipes.  It is really good.  The rest will go in my oatmeal and just get eaten.

Go picking!