blackberries

Tasty Tuesday–Blackberry Smoothies

I love blackberry season at Eckert’s! They are by far my favorite fruit to pick…and eat! I’m always looking for new recipes to try with our bounty, and this time, the children really wanted me to make smoothies. I had fun putting this recipe together…I think the nutmeg makes it extra special. The following recipe makes about 3-4 servings, so I had to double it for our family. You could also easily halve it if you only want to serve two!

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  • 2 cups fresh blackberries (frozen would work, too)
  • 16 oz. vanilla yogurt
  • 1 1/2 cups milk
  • 4 Tbsp. sugar (more or less depending on how tart your berries are)
  • 1/4 tsp. nutmeg

Combine all ingredients in blender and blend until smooth, scraping down sides as necessary. Serve immediately.

Blackberry Picking 2016

Today was one of my favorite days of the summer…we went blackberry picking at Eckert’s!

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We couldn’t have asked for a more beautiful day, especially after the heat last week. But I think that same heat was good for the blackberries, because they looked beautiful, and we picked two boxes full!

Blackberry Picking 2014

Today was one of my favorite days of the year…blackberry picking at Eckert’s!

I love blackberry picking because a.) They’re so delicious; and 2.) They’re so easy for people of every age to pick, because of the way they grow up the trellises. Chickadee could find berries on the bottom, and I could reach the ones on the top, and everybody else could pick berries in between!

We ended up with 11 pounds of berries, which sound like a lot, but isn’t that much when you have so many people in the house who love eating them!

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And when you make a blackberry cobbler for dessert!

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I love blackberry picking…hopefully we’ll get to go back at some point before blackberry season is over!

Blackberry Picking

We went to one of our favorite places this morning!

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We’d never picked blackberries before, so we decided to try it out. They were clearly expecting a big crowd today!

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Fortunately, we got there early, so we didn’t have to wait in line. That didn’t stop Turkey from racing through the whole queue, though!

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Turkey and Ladybug were in charge of one box, and Bunny and Moose the other. Chickadee decided that she hates blackberries, so she just hung out with me and watched disdainfully.

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There were still a few blossoms, but not many.

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We saw berries in all stages of development, from tiny and green, to red, to black and ready to pick!

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It was much easier to pick blackberries than it was strawberries, thanks to the very cool rotating trellises. We ended up with almost five pounds of blackberries. Turkey and Ladybug had more blackberries by weight, but they didn’t weigh Moose on his way out, and I’m pretty sure he ate more than he put in the box, so in the end, I’m guessing both pairs of children picked about the same amount.

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It was a fun (and delicious!), way to spend a beautiful morning in June!