Anna Sultana’s Blueberries: Pie, French Toast and Clafoutis / If I Name It, It Can Stay

Blueberry Clafoutis

 

In Manitoba Monday is Terry Fox Day.
On the first Monday in August we honour athlete and cancer research activist Terry Fox, who was born in Winnipeg in 1958.

Monday is also a holiday in a few other provinces, but they just call it August Civic Holiday.

Ah, well, a holiday is a holiday.
It’s time to relax and enjoy life.
And that means food.

A brunch dish adds a bit of dash to the holiday weekend menu.
Clafoutis is a French breakfast dish that is easy to prepare.
It has been described as a flan, pancake and soufflé in one, with a texture between a custard and a cake.

Prices have been crazy for the past couple of years, thanks to Covid-19.
Blueberries are in season, and are also available in the frozen food section.
Our Safeway has them on sale, so it’s a good time to use them.

These recipes also work with any other berries or stone fruit that are in season…
or in your freezer.
Whatever you have or observe, enjoy the holiday!


Hints:

About the Blueberry Pie…
You can also use a frozen pie crust.

Blueberry Refrigerator Pie is also easy to prepare
https://imturning60help.blogspot.com/2018/06/blueberry-refrigerator-pie-margaret.html


About the Blueberry French Toast…
You can use a one pound loaf of any type of bread.

Just a heads up - prepare this dish the day before you want it.


About the Blueberry Clafoutis…
If you don’t have buttermilk place 1 Tablespoon vinegar in a measuring cup and add enough milk to make one cup. Let it sit for about 10 minutes.

You can also use fresh blueberries in this recipe.

Clafoutis can be made up to one day in advance. Cool to room temperature and refrigerate, covered, overnight. 

It can be served warm, at room temperature, or cold. You can briefly reheat it in the oven at the same temperature it was originally baked. It's traditionally not served with any accompaniment.

Refrigerate leftovers in an airtight container for up to three days. It does not freeze well.

If your clafoutis seems rubbery reduce the cooking time 5 to 10 minutes or turn the oven down by 10 degrees.

                        Easy Blueberry Pie
 
Preheat oven to 425º F          

Place in a 9 inch pie pan
1 1/2 Cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoons sugar         
3/4 teaspoon salt
Mix together.

Place in a measuring cup
1/2 Cup oil
3 Tablespoons cold milk
Beat together until creamy, then add to the flour mixture, stir together and pat in to fill the pan.
Prick crust, place in oven and bake 15 minutes.
Remove from oven and set aside.

Place in a medium saucepan
2/3 Cup sugar
1/4 Cup cornstarch
1 Cup water
Combine well.
Add
1 1/2 Cups blueberries
Cook over medium heat, 7 to 10 minutes, stirring occasionally until the mixture is thick.
Stir in
1 Tablespoon lemon juice
2 Tablespoons butter
Remove pot from heat and let cool in the saucepan for 1 hour.
Stir in
2 1/2 Cups blueberries
Taste and add more sugar if you wish a sweeter taste.
Pour into the baked pie shell and chill until firm.
Serve with sweetened whipped cream or vanilla ice cream, if you wish.


                        Blueberry French Toast

Grease a 9 x 13 inch baking pan

Remove the heels of
1 loaf Italian bread
Slice on the diagonal to create eight 3/4-inch thick slices.
Arrange bread slices in prepared baking pan.

Place in a bowl
4 eggs
1/2 Cup milk
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Stir together until well blended.
Slowly pour mixture over the bread, pressing down slices for full absorption.
Cover and refrigerate for at least 1 hour. Overnight is best.

Grease another 9 x 13 inch baking pan
Place in this prepared pan
5 Cups blueberries

Place in a bowl
1 Cup sugar
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
2 teaspoons cornstarch
Stir together and sprinkle evenly over the blueberries.

Place oven rack in centre of oven.
Preheat oven to 425° F

Place the bread slices over the blueberries, wettest side up.
Brush bread with
1 Tablespoon butter, melted
Bake  for 25 to 30 minutes, or until golden brown.

Place slices of the toast berry-side down on warmed plates.
Scoop remaining berry mixture in the baking dish over the toast.
Sprinkle with
1/4 Cup confectioners' sugar


                        Blueberry Clafoutis

Grease a 9 inch pie pan with butter

Place in the prepared baking dish in an even layer
10 to 16 ounces frozen blueberries

Place in a small bowl
9 Tablespoons flour
1/8 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
Combine.

Preheat oven to 350º F

Place in a large bowl
1 Cup buttermilk
3 large eggs
6 Tablespoons white sugar
Beat together.
Add flour mixture to buttermilk mixture.
Stir until batter is smooth.
Add
1 teaspoon grated orange zest or 1/2 teaspoon orange extract
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Carefully pour mixture over blueberries in the baking dish.
Bake in the preheated oven 30 minutes.
Sprinkle with
1 tablespoon brown sugar, or more to taste
Return to the oven and bake until sugar is lightly browned, 10 to 15 minutes.
Serve warm or cold.

                                                             ~~~

This is a piece I wrote for my CKUW show in Spring, 2006.
The rhubarb plants are still with us, while the aspens were removed when they were in danger of falling over from old age. We now have milkweeds for the butterflies, and a basil plant near our tomatoes.
Gardening continues to be a learning experience for me.


   I'm trying to be a good Manitoban, but 20 centimetres of snow is not my idea of Spring.  In the movie Camelot they did not have snowball fights while singing The Lusty Month of May.  Who knew we could get travel advisories in the middle of May?  What the heck was that?  

   Okay, enough venting.  The snow melted.  It is Spring.  We have passed the Victoria Day Weekend.  It is time to get serious about gardening right here in River City.  Gardening in Manitoba is like being a Senior.  It ain't for wimps.

   My husband Paul and I are from New York.  People do garden there.  But it isn't as exciting as here.  Okay, New Yorkers get a hurricane or two, but for the most part it's just muggy in the summer.  Hydrangeas love it.

   This area was once a dairy farm.  Paul and I have tried to make our 35 by 100 foot piece of former farmland beautiful.  Our home was only four years old when we bought it in 1988.  We'd heard about its first owners.  After they'd installed a lawn, the wife planted a small tree, the husband yanked it out and then they filed for divorce.

   We fought the Karma.  After a priest blessed our home, we went to the nursery and picked up three cotoneasters, six evergreens, a grapevine, three lilacs and three michaelmas daisies.  We also got trees: two chokecherries and two Swedish aspens.  They were the cutest little things - Paul was taller than the aspens.  How big could they get?  Yeah…  

   We also bought five rhubarbs, something for homemade desserts while our son was in the hollow leg stage.  The clerk assured me that they - the rhubarbs - only lived about ten years.  Perfect.  That's all we'd need.    
 
   I read books.  According to a best seller, The Postage Stamp Garden Book, I could become Lady Bountiful dripping with fresh produce.  My garden would look like a miniature rain forest.  I could grow it all in very little space by intensive gardening techniques.  Translation: ignore the cute little stickers and cram everything together.  I bought 24 tomato plants, along with baby onions and zucchini, carrot, green bean and lettuce seeds.  I intercropped - that's planting seeds among the plants.  When the seeds sprouted, they looked about as hopeful as the folks in steerage on the Titanic.  They survived about as well.  The tomatoes didn't do much better.  My garden looked more like compost than a rain forest.  I tossed the book.

 
   People on gardening shows are so happy digging and planting.  We need someone who'll say, You idiot!  Stop doing that!  One of our first gardening purchases was a hose reel.  It had a short hose to attach the faucet to the hose.  We thought there was a safety reason for that.  Paul nailed the reel to the fence near the faucet which was nowhere near the garden.  For 14 years we shlepped around half the perimeter of our house lugging 150 feet of hose every time we had to water the garden.  With all that hose around it looked like we were fighting a four alarmer.  Two years ago the fence board keeled over.  Finally, it hit me.  We're talking water.  Why can't the reel be near the garden?  We could use a longer hose to attach the faucet to the hose.  Why isn't there someone to help the gardening impaired?  Don't they know some of us are clueless?  
      
   When we became empty nesters I got buggy and bought a butterfly starter kit.  I believed: if I plant it, they will come.  I also picked up some lovely pastel pansies.  Well, the butterflies did come.  They pigged out on the liatris, echinacea, sedum and rudbeckia.  My pansies disappeared.  From a CBC radio gardening segment I learned that butterflies lay their eggs in pansies.  Basically I had created a butterfly cheap motel - they came, got drunk on the flowers, then had unsafe sex in my pansies which their rotten kids then devoured.  Of all the nerve!  

                          
   Last year I got another gardening book.  The author had been on a Canadian show.  He promised we could have beautiful CANADIAN gardens with no work at all.  Yeah, that sounded like jumbo shrimp,  but he was serious.  All we had to do was plant perennials.  They'd come back every year.  Isn't that nice?  So I got one of every perennial available.  I was so pleased.  The cerastium, asters, pearly everlastings, black-eyed susans, mallows and yarrows just took over the place.  The dozen creeping jennies filled in all the bare spots.  Our two dogs, Popcorn and Bobo, couldn't kill a single plant.  I'd gone to garden heaven.  Then a neighbour dropped by.  I poured coffee.  She got down to suburban business.

   Eh, Marg, when are you going to get rid of the weeds?

   Weeds?  Okay, our lawn had an occasional dandelion, but let she without a single dandelion cast the first stone.  I was miffed.  I pulled out the little stickers that had come with my perennials.  See, I'd actually paid good (Okay, Canadian) money for my perennials.  My neighbour pulled out a dog-eared Golden Guide for Weeds.  There, along with a page on dandelions, was a page for each of my perennials.  My beloved pearly everlasting, with the oh so proper Latin name gnaphalium margaritacea, was a cudweed.  I felt like John Cleese in the Monty Python dead parrot sketch.  I was stuck with a yard full of dead parrots.  Beautiful plumage my Aunt ZuZu!!

   I had to face facts.  One may be closer to God in a garden than anywhere else on earth, but the guy at the nursery just wanted to make a buck.  How else does one explain catering to 'zone denial'?  They're selling plants that belong in zone ten, not our own zone three.  They're selling magnolias.  Did Scarlet O'Hara just come waltzing in?  Of course they won't guarantee the magnolia's health beyond this summer.  It's a miracle the plant survived crossing the border.  Those rhubarbs which were supposed to live ten years are now old enough for learners' permits.  The clerk would've said whatever I wanted to hear.  

   Okay.  The garden gloves came off.  I got a copy of the weed guide.  Time for me to apply some Yankee ingenuity to my garden.  It has been a while since cows roamed my yard so I wasn't worried about yarrows tainting anybody's milk.  The yarrows, along with his buddies, are staying.  If I can name it, it can stay.  Since I didn't need pedigreed plants for a garden show I decided I'd help myself to nature's hardy perennials.  Along the roads where I walk our dogs the fields are alive with perennials.  Armed with spade and bucket I got perennials that are as hard as nails.

   I now have an herb garden of mustard, winter cress and anise.  There's chicory for coffee and chamomile for tea.  Who needs basil for pesto?  Daisies - English, fleabane, field and shasta - thrive where I once struggled with fussier plants.
       
   One man's weed is another's cash crop or freebie.  This summer I plan to read Harlequin romances in a little corner where I've sown my love lies bleeding, also known as pigweed.  I've sown my wild oats.  Life is good.