Some of the fruit was eaten during this photo session. I am so weak. The watermelon is completely gone!

There are only two things that I absolutely cannot resist buying. Ok, there are more than two but there are two that are in the seriously addicted area of the scale. One is shoes. I just can’t resist a shoe sale or maybe it’s not on sale, but a new style or a new color or…well…you get the idea but that is another post.

The other item is fruit. I know it’s hard to believe but put me at a farmer’s market or a good produce section and I will buy everything that’s gorgeous and fresh looking.

The beloved husband is not a fruit person. He eats bananas which barely classify as fruit. Bananas are perfect for exactly one day. The day before they are too green and the day after they have brown flecks, yuk!

I can sneak a strawberry or a couple of wedges of watermelon on his plate and he will eat them but he will never seek out fruit on his own.

This past weekend was the first weekend that you could get local corn on the cob. We have been eating corn “imported” from the southern states for a couple of months but this is local — fresh from the field without a chance to get starchy. Off to the corn shed we went. Wouldn’t you know it, they had peaches (from someplace farther south), and local blueberries and strawberries. I eagerly piled peaches and blueberries into our carrier and we checked out.

When I got home, I wasn’t quite sure what I would do with the blueberries. Then I remembered. Last year the local blueberries were big, plump and sweet and I went crazy buying them. As a matter of fact, I still had a gallon of them frozen in the basement. This is insane! I put the new blueberries out to graze “just so” and proceeded to find a recipe for some of the frozen berries.

The beloved husband doesn’t eat desserts or sweets so whatever I make, I will have to eat or give away. This is where I really miss work. You could take any food into work and you were an instant hero. It didn’t even have to taste good.

I have an old blueberry pie recipe that you make with half-cooked and half-fresh blueberries. It is very fresh tasting and since it’s cooked on the stove and put in a prebaked pie shell you really don’t have to make a pie. It’s great on ice cream or layered with pudding or custard in pretty glasses topped with whipped cream and sliced almonds or crushed roasted pecans. Yum!

I also found a buttermilk custard recipe with fruit. It comes out of the oven high but flattens out. It is more of a tart than a pie. The attraction is that other than the pie crust, it’s very easy to make. I usually have buttermilk on hand. It’s very versatile and low in calories. If I don’t, you can sour some milk with a tablespoon of lemon juice or vinegar in regular milk and that will work.

The original recipe was made with nectarines but the blueberries worked out fine. This is not a sweet recipe which suits me too.

So what do I have in my house right now besides a gallon frozen blueberries, a quart of fresh blueberries and strawberries? I have half a watermelon, a dozen wonderful navel oranges (probably the end of the season for those), fresh peaches and some frozen ones, too. I could make a fruit salad if I could figure out how to disguise it as the main course. I have enough to serve the sixth fleet (U.S. naval armed forces).

Here is the blueberry pie recipe. It originally came from an old Farm Journal cookbook, circa 1965.

  ¾ cup sugar

3 tbsp. cornstarch

1/8 tsp. salt

¼ cup water

4 cups blueberries

1 tbsp.butter

1 tbsp. lemon juice

• Combine sugar, cornstarch and salt in saucepan. Add water and 2 cups blueberries; cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until mixture comes to a boil and is thickened and clear. (Mixture will be quite thick.)
• Remove from heat and stir in butter and lemon juice. Cool.
• Mix in remaining 2 cups uncooked blueberries. You can use over pound or angel food cake, ice cream, layer with pudding, etc. (If you put in prebaked pie shell you can put the uncooked blueberries in the shell and top with the cooked mixture.)

PS: In researching this article, I found that the Farm Journal cookbook I have with a jacket cover price of $6.95 is worth $45! Enough to buy a pair of shoes on sale!