Blueberries... this years endless bounty

[billycap]

Went out today to see if i could find a creek to gold pan in that i had spotted on google earth. Its close to town and i had to cross a large cut block to get there. Right away i notice bear scat about every 10ft on the sandy trail... most made of pure blueberries. I go up over the hump that separates the road from the cut block and there before my eyes is a solid stretch of blueberries that literally goes for miles. A good frost has withered the underbrush exposing truck loads of them. I head for the truck and switch my gold pan for an ice cream bucket and 5 gallon pail... 4 hours later i have the 5gal bucket almost full. Now the question is what to make of all these berries... Im not much of a breakfast person or a drinker.. What would u do with an unlimited supply of blue goodness? Im going to have to freeze most of them as im headed away to work for a month tommorow.

Ps anyone heading to the jasper valemount area in the next couple weeks should PM me for the spot if they are interested in a trunkload of berries to take home. Good luck out there and watch out for bear landmines!

[artie]

I picked some blue berries in the CNP the other day and they were still sour. How did your berries taste?

[zero]

gooooood score man! glad to see you are prepared for the bears too, shouldnt need to use it with so many berries though!

[billycap]

Originally Posted by artie

I picked some blue berries in the CNP the other day and they were still sour. How did your berries taste?

Nice n sweet... almost no unripe ones. The berries are smaller this year than last but there is 10x as many. The sun was relentless... the biggest best berries i found were on the shady side of bushes and fallen burch trees.

[Evilsports]

I freeze a pile of blueberries every year.

My main staple use for them is a cup or so of them out of the freezer and into the microwave for 30 seconds, and then into a bowl of yogurt before bed most nights. Matter of fact I just finished a bowl.

Aside from that I make jam 2-3 times a year. Always use raspberries as the base but I'll add blueberries or saskatoons, depending which I have more of at the time.

My daughter loves them right out of the freezer.

We put them in crepes and pancakes too.

Aside from that I'd like to find a killer blueberry recipe and convince my wife to get a little muffin cycle going as well.

We just freeze the in bags. Don't wash them, don't bother with cookie sheets. Just fire them in big freezer bags and pop them in the deep freeze. Seems to work the best as they never bunch up or freeze together in clumps this way.

[billycap]

Originally Posted by zero

gooooood score man! glad to see you are prepared for the bears too, shouldnt need to use it with so many berries though!

Always bring an anti-bear device when u head to the bears grocery store and start filling up your cart... As u said there is plenty to go around so unless u both grab the same bush at the same time everything should remain mellow.