Blueberries and lake weeds
Last night a friend and I went for a canoe ride in the arboretum area in her canoe. It's whitewater canoe, and therefore more maneuverable, and also more tippy, than a standard canoe. Once we'd launched and gotten about 30 seconds out towards the ducks and lilly pads, and she said "Don't get nervous, I'm going to show you this is OK," and proceeded to rock the canoe back and forth to show that it was tippy, but safe.
About 8 seconds into her demo, we lost it, capsized, filled the canoe with water, failed to climb back in, and had to tow it back to shore swimming and wading through the muck and weeds. That part was kind of icky. (And the weed root things were unpleasantly creepy on my legs.)
Once ashore we dumped out the water, and then started over, having a lovely paddle. We got very close to a blue heron, and saw a beaver dive near us several times. The balance of the canoe adventure was unremarkable.
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Blueberries and baking!
This week QFC has blueberries, conventional AND organic, for $2.50 a pound. I bought four pounds and have been inspired to bake. There are a few things unrelated to blueberries I've been meaning to bake, and a few more the blueberries have inspired me towards. I present some of them here for your perusal.
About 8 seconds into her demo, we lost it, capsized, filled the canoe with water, failed to climb back in, and had to tow it back to shore swimming and wading through the muck and weeds. That part was kind of icky. (And the weed root things were unpleasantly creepy on my legs.)
Once ashore we dumped out the water, and then started over, having a lovely paddle. We got very close to a blue heron, and saw a beaver dive near us several times. The balance of the canoe adventure was unremarkable.
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Blueberries and baking!
This week QFC has blueberries, conventional AND organic, for $2.50 a pound. I bought four pounds and have been inspired to bake. There are a few things unrelated to blueberries I've been meaning to bake, and a few more the blueberries have inspired me towards. I present some of them here for your perusal.
- Already baked
- Blueberry pie. Crust from the store was pleasantly flaky, but a little dry. Might try another brand sometime. Ate pie last night, and some for breakfast, and snacked a bit. It's not gone, but one pie goes quickly.
Partially baked - No-knead bread. Apparently it's totally foolproof, though it takes ~24 hours to make. My first loaf was mixed last night, and is in phase 2 of rising right now. I will be eating it later tonight. (Full article about the bread and recipe.)
Not yet started (will probably make at least one of these tonight) - Blueberry muffins. I use my mother's classic muffin recipe from The Tassajara Bread Book. It's very versatile and makes fantastic, tasty, warm, healthy muffins. It's been a long time since I made them and I'm all kinds of excited about it.
- Blueberry cobbler, crisp, crumble. I don't know what the differences here are, but I'm thinking of something like a pie filling with a lumpy flour, butter, and sugar topping. Basically, easier than a pie.
- Supernatural Brownies (or here). The name says it all. How could I resist? I had to look up the recipe while I was shopping and stumbled onto a doubled version, so I bought a pound of chocolate, etc, etc.