Saturday, August 10, 2013

Berries!

One good thing Idaho has is berries!  And lots of them!

Last week my neighbors were nice enough to invite me huckleberry picking.  This has definitely been on my bucket list for Idaho and it did not disappoint!  Huckleberries are like the best berry of all.  They smell absolutely wonderful and you can make so many tasty things with them!  I chose to make a huckleberry swirl cheese cake with huckleberry sauce.  Delicious!


It's not often that I take pictures of my food, but this had to be documented.


Right?  I know.  You wish you lived here.

We also have a beautiful raspberry patch in our back yard and it has had a high yield of berries!  So far I've picked about 15 cups.


I also made a raspberry cheesecake with raspberry sauce... yes apparently I am on a cheesecake kick, but I have also canned some raspberry juice concentrate and raspberry syrup, as well as frozen many berries for smoothies. 

Tonight we went back out into the mountains to pick more huckleberries and I came back with another bowl full.  I'm not sure what I'll make with them this time, but my kitchen smell heavenly with them just sitting on the counter!  I love how fragrant these berries are!


Can you spot Brodie in the bushes?

The whole family came this time, which was so much fun!  Bo isn't a very good picker... he's got the hunter gene, not the gatherer gene, but he is an excellent father and babysitter.  He and the boys shot the BB gun, ran up and down the dusty roads, and were just very well behaved.  And Mari slept the whole time.  Love that girl.

The strangest berry I've come across this week though are potato berries!!

Did you know potatoes can grow berries?  It blew my mind when I saw them.  I was playing around in my garden and spotted a cluster.  Upon further investigation, I found bunches of berries on all my potato plants!  Turns out potatoes growing berries is pretty rare and only happens in a few varieties.  A google search told me that only 1% of potatoes grown in the US produce berries.  So apparently, potatoes have seeds and you can grow potatoes from seed.  Crazy!


I harvested the berries (which are supposed to be very toxic) and they are now sitting on my counter waiting for the seed extracting process.  I'm planning on just throwing them in my food storage seed collection because the seed can last indefinitely.  Neat, huh?

And here is a random, has nothing to do with the post, other then it cracks me up, Mari sleeping pose:


Crazy girl!

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