Blueberry Buckle for Our Lady

We were explaining to G (4) about how it was almost the Feast of the Assumption. Her eyes lit up and she asked me excitedly, "Are we going to make blueberry buckle?" I had not planned on it, but lately I have been keeping blueberries in the freezer for my current favorite breakfast of granola, homemade yoghurt, and blueberries. I said, "Sure, we can do that!" And mentally planned when we would have an hour to bake the dessert and be able to eat it before the girls' bedtime.

I first had blueberry buckle when a friend made it for a ladies prayer group when we lived in Buffalo, NY. It was really delicious and I found a recipe for blueberry and peach buckle in one of my cookbooks. I adapted it to make with just blueberries. Then one year on the Queenship of Mary, I was thinking of a way to honor Our Lady. I thought of the blueberry buckle as a really neat way to honor her, especially since my friend made her's in a pie dish, resembling a crown shape. It was perfect. Since then I have been making it on other Marian feast days, and now for the kids it has become a family tradition. We will continue to make blueberry buckle for Our Lady.

Blueberry Buckle (Adapted from The Joy of Cooking)

Position a rack in the lower third of the oven. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Butter and flour a pie pan.

The Topping:
Blend until crumbly:
-1/3 cup sugar
-2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
-2 tablespoons unsalted butter 
Add:
-1/2 teaspoon of ground cinnamon

The Buckle:
Have ready:
-2 cups blueberries (frozen or fresh, the frozen will take longer to cook)

Whisk together:
-1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
-2 teaspoons baking powder
-1/2 teaspoon salt
Combine in another bowl and beat until slightly fluffy:
-1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, softened
-1 cup sugar
-1 large egg
Gradually beat in:
-1/2 cup milk

Blue for Mary!

Add the dry ingredients and stir until they are just moistened and the batter is smooth. Carefully fold
in the blueberries. Put into the prepared pie dish and spread evenly. Sprinkle the topping over the batter.

Bake for 50-55 minutes (or 60-65 if using frozen berries), until the top springs back when touched and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Let cool 20 minutes on a rack before serving.

Enjoy!

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I am joining a group of Catholic Bloggers doing monthly themed posts. This month is for Mary. Please check out the other blogs and posts!

Catholic Bloggers Collective

Nancy from www.dosmallthingswithlove.com

Jennifer from http://www.catholicinspired.com

Monica from  http://www.equippingcatholicfamilies.com and  http://www.iblogjesus.com

Melody from http://mamaslittleditty.blogspot.com/

Susanna from http://livingwithladyphilosophy.blogspot.com

Ginny from http://randomactsofmomness.com/

Seven Quick Takes-Friday, Aug 23 (Caution! Scary Basement Pictures!)

1. I write these quick takes as I listen to my first St. Louis Cardinals game this season. It is almost September. I feel like an awful fan. I am really sorry about this guys. I have been checking the standings all season and reading my St. Louis Post Dispatch baseball app occasionally. I am not sure what happened this summer, maybe we moved and then the basement was chaotic. Listening to games reminds me of when I was in high school and would listen to every single game playing solitaire the whole time, or keeping score on my homemade scorecards. Before the games I always listened to "Sports Open Live" on KMOX. I even called in a few times. I was pretty obsessed with baseball. I am trying to convince M to let me display my Mike Matheny bobble-head when the basement is finished. I am thinking he won't go for it...

2. Tomorrow is my mom's birthday. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MOM!! You are a wonderful and holy woman. Thank you for your example of a beautiful life!

3. I harvested my first tomato from the garden today. I think maybe that I am not watering the plants enough, but it was pretty good anyway. I am going to wait until it is a little redder next time:

4.  Saga of the Leaky Pipe Update:  We first found the leak on June 29. This week was demolition week. A demolition team came out and spent two days riping out knotty pine paneling and the drop ceiling. The basement looked worse than ever with piles of rubble on the middle of it. I did not take a picture of it since it was painful. Today they surprised us and sent out a carpenter to do the framing for the drywall including that for our spare room (egress window to be put in at a future date). I think I am going to call it "the sewing room" in hopes that I actually sew something. And now I am going to treat you with some pictures.

The "Sewing Room" framing. One day this might have two bunk beds and teenage girls in it...

 

 

 

The laundry room through the "sewing room" wall.

The family room, stairs, and door for M's study.

5. Soon we will have to decide on wall and carpet colors. We are getting the same carpet in the study, stairs, family room, and sewing room. The question is, what style would be good for all four places and what color. I really want the basement to be a happy, cheery, warm place to be, but I want a carpet style and color that won't look outdated in a few years. I feel like the choices are a beige color or maybe gray. Would grayish carpet be too gloomy in a basement? As for walls I really want a nice soft yellow color.

I found this palette on Pinterest.

Any thoughts on using the yellow for the walls and the gray or cream for carpet? Will this look totally outdated in a few years?

6. M's summer night class that he has been teaching is over. I have learned a lot about my vocation having to put all three kids to bed two nights a week. I am not sure I want to go into detail right now, but I think I am closer to the kids because of it and have more confidence in my ability to care for the children at bedtime alone...

7. I feel like I need to make a big deal about our first day of home school preschool for G. I am feeling a little left out with all these "first day of school" photos on Facebook. But you see in Minnesota, I have heard it is not acceptable to start school before the end of the State Fair which ends on Labor Day. I think this is reasonable, since in Minnesota Winter is so long and Spring comes so late. It is good to give the kids a few more weeks to run around outside before they are cooped up for 6+ hours a day (another great reason to home school). If you are my Facebook friend, we are still having summer here, so look for the first day of school photos after Labor Day.

For more Quick Takes head on over to Jen's Conversion Diary.

Kuplink! Kuplank! Kuplunk!

The two girls each had a little tin pail as they eagerly ran to the blueberry bushes. Kuplink! One found a blueberry and dropped it in her pail. Kuplank! Her sister found a berry. Kuplunk! That is how it went as the girls ran amongst the bushes picking a berry here and a berry there, asking to try them, and looking for the bears.

Their excitement at picking blueberries was inspired by the Robert McCloskey's book, Blueberries for Sal. It is a sweet little book about a girl and her mother who go to Blueberry Hill to pick berries for canning and a bear and her cub who are also on the mountain. I love the simple story, and the depiction of a small child wandering about eating blueberries to her heart's content. The illustrations are really nice as well; my favorite drawing is the canning scene at the end of the book. I admire the mother in the story for canning with a toddler in the midst of her canning supplies.

We checked the book out of the library mid-July and, as we are with library books, held onto it for about three weeks. The girls asked to go blueberry picking, so we made a family outing of it the last week of the blueberry season. The whole week leading up to it they talked about how they each needed a little tin pail (I found these in the $1 section at Target!) and how the blueberries were going to sound as they dropped them into their pails. It was a lot of fun, and next year we hope to go at the height of the season so that we to can get some blueberries for canning.

Another highlight of the trip is that I reached a new level of mom-skills: nursing a baby who was in the baby carrier that I was wearing. It is definitely not my preference, but when the baby is fussing and we are out in a field picking berries there is not really any other option. Further, I had to point out to M what I was doing for him to be able to notice. :)