While visiting my mom, I kept buying blueberries in an effort to find some that tasted like what (I thought) blueberries should taste like. I ended up bringing 3+ quarts of the darn things back to NC and now was left with what to do...what to do with them...
First I decided to make blueberry jam, but then remembered I don't have the best track record when it comes to jam, so the next thought was blueberry pie. But I'd gained weight while spending a month in Pittsburgh, home of the "we'll put french fries on anything that doesn't move and then add a scoop of custard ice cream on top. Maybe two." So pie was out of the question.
But not blueberry pie filling. Ya, that would solve the problem and I could cram bags of prepared filling in the freezer easier than whole pies. A boatload of blueberries, sugar, lemon juice and cornstarch later, I ended up with a 3.5 QT pan full of blueberry pie filling. It was delicious.
Only then did I look up freezing options on the Internet and read that you CAN'T FREEZE pie filling that has been thickened with corn starch. Why, oh why, she remonstrated to the heavens, do I always look this stuff up AFTER THE FACT! I could have easily cooked the blueberries, sugar and lemon to a point and then stopped and frozen that, but no. Not me. Not the stupid one sitting in the corner with the dunce cap on backwards.
So NOW I'm left with 3.5+ quarts of thick blueberry filling that I can't freeze. I decided to make something for the free lunch spot but realized those items need to be hand-held and portable (not plated as the regular kitchen volunteers plate their own desserts. My donations are usually handed over to clients as they leave.)
Then I remembered BRAVETART (Stella Parks) had a simple Pop Tart version that would work. Possibly work. Hopefully work. So I leaped into action...and then screeched to a halt. Turns out I didn't have any butter since I'd cleared out the refrigerator before leaving for a month and the bottle of Karo syrup only had 1" at the bottom and that didn't seem like 1/2 C. But never let it be said that I let something as simple of no ingredients stop me.
Stella makes strawberry-flavored pop-tarts and used dried apple along with freeze-dried strawberries plus applesauce to make a dense flavorful filling. Mine was already flavorful, but I was worried it would be too runny. Fortuitously there were 2 cups of dried apples in the pantry which I buzzed into the blueberry filling to make it even thicker.
Yes...I know. I actually just increased the amount of filling I was trying to deal with. Dunce cap, remember.
I decided to use the butter-flavored Crisco sticks I stock solely for my oatmeal cookies because CathyZ says shortening is okay for pie pastry and I'd walk over coals on her word. Obviously, cold coals. I'm stupid, but not that stupid. And I decided that 1" of Karo syrup was better than nothing and I had no clue what else to substitute since I'd ditched my jar of glucose on the move here and maple syrup seemed too thin.
Tossed it into the food processor and a few minutes later I was rolling out dough. Stella says the dough should be no more than 1/8" thick but I couldn't find my 1/8" dowels, so my pastry ended up 3/16" thick. The world did not fly off its axis so I guess that was okay.
I cut the dough into 2" squares to make 24 Pop tarts and, of course, added too much filling, which resulting in slightly messy ooze issues. But they baked perfectly without spreading (Crisco effect??) and I ended up using a whole 1/2 cup from all that filling.
Ya, turns out it wasn't such a great solution to use up a lot of the filling, but they seemed appreciative at the center. And they tasted...fine. I was surprised. I've gotten so use to using butter in everything and shortening in nothing that this was actually a pleasant surprise.
So pleasant that I'm making a half-sheet pie for the library volunteers this weekend and using the butter-flavored Crisco WITH DELIBERATION. Hopefully I'll be able to use up most of that blueberry filling. Or maybe I'll just pack it in small jars, add a fancy label, jack up the price to obscene levels and sell it at the farmer's market as a farm-to-table facial scrub with beneficial fiber, potassium, folate, vitamin C, vitamin B6, and phytonutrients.
Says the lady in the dunce cap.
https://recipeswap.org/fun/wp-content/uploads/swap-photos/poptart.jpg
First I decided to make blueberry jam, but then remembered I don't have the best track record when it comes to jam, so the next thought was blueberry pie. But I'd gained weight while spending a month in Pittsburgh, home of the "we'll put french fries on anything that doesn't move and then add a scoop of custard ice cream on top. Maybe two." So pie was out of the question.
But not blueberry pie filling. Ya, that would solve the problem and I could cram bags of prepared filling in the freezer easier than whole pies. A boatload of blueberries, sugar, lemon juice and cornstarch later, I ended up with a 3.5 QT pan full of blueberry pie filling. It was delicious.
Only then did I look up freezing options on the Internet and read that you CAN'T FREEZE pie filling that has been thickened with corn starch. Why, oh why, she remonstrated to the heavens, do I always look this stuff up AFTER THE FACT! I could have easily cooked the blueberries, sugar and lemon to a point and then stopped and frozen that, but no. Not me. Not the stupid one sitting in the corner with the dunce cap on backwards.
So NOW I'm left with 3.5+ quarts of thick blueberry filling that I can't freeze. I decided to make something for the free lunch spot but realized those items need to be hand-held and portable (not plated as the regular kitchen volunteers plate their own desserts. My donations are usually handed over to clients as they leave.)
Then I remembered BRAVETART (Stella Parks) had a simple Pop Tart version that would work. Possibly work. Hopefully work. So I leaped into action...and then screeched to a halt. Turns out I didn't have any butter since I'd cleared out the refrigerator before leaving for a month and the bottle of Karo syrup only had 1" at the bottom and that didn't seem like 1/2 C. But never let it be said that I let something as simple of no ingredients stop me.
Stella makes strawberry-flavored pop-tarts and used dried apple along with freeze-dried strawberries plus applesauce to make a dense flavorful filling. Mine was already flavorful, but I was worried it would be too runny. Fortuitously there were 2 cups of dried apples in the pantry which I buzzed into the blueberry filling to make it even thicker.
Yes...I know. I actually just increased the amount of filling I was trying to deal with. Dunce cap, remember.
I decided to use the butter-flavored Crisco sticks I stock solely for my oatmeal cookies because CathyZ says shortening is okay for pie pastry and I'd walk over coals on her word. Obviously, cold coals. I'm stupid, but not that stupid. And I decided that 1" of Karo syrup was better than nothing and I had no clue what else to substitute since I'd ditched my jar of glucose on the move here and maple syrup seemed too thin.
Tossed it into the food processor and a few minutes later I was rolling out dough. Stella says the dough should be no more than 1/8" thick but I couldn't find my 1/8" dowels, so my pastry ended up 3/16" thick. The world did not fly off its axis so I guess that was okay.
I cut the dough into 2" squares to make 24 Pop tarts and, of course, added too much filling, which resulting in slightly messy ooze issues. But they baked perfectly without spreading (Crisco effect??) and I ended up using a whole 1/2 cup from all that filling.
Ya, turns out it wasn't such a great solution to use up a lot of the filling, but they seemed appreciative at the center. And they tasted...fine. I was surprised. I've gotten so use to using butter in everything and shortening in nothing that this was actually a pleasant surprise.
So pleasant that I'm making a half-sheet pie for the library volunteers this weekend and using the butter-flavored Crisco WITH DELIBERATION. Hopefully I'll be able to use up most of that blueberry filling. Or maybe I'll just pack it in small jars, add a fancy label, jack up the price to obscene levels and sell it at the farmer's market as a farm-to-table facial scrub with beneficial fiber, potassium, folate, vitamin C, vitamin B6, and phytonutrients.
Says the lady in the dunce cap.
https://recipeswap.org/fun/wp-content/uploads/swap-photos/poptart.jpg
