Last weekend we took a day trip up to Warwick with the cousins and headed to a “pick your own” farm called Ochs Orchard . My older daughter was in the mood to pick eggplant!
We had a fun day and picked a variety of fruit and vegetables including tomatoes, kale, broccoli, eggplant, corn, blackberries, strawberries and basil.
Everything was really good – especially the tomatoes! I picked enough to make a few batches of fresh tomato sauce. With the strawberries my husband made ice cream and with the blackberries I decided to make a crumble. It’s really easy and you can make it with any fruit.
By the time I decided to make it, we had about 2 cups of berries left – mostly blackberries and a handful of strawberries. It came out to 3 portions so if you want more just double the recipe.
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Add 2 cups of berries to a bowl. To that add 1/4 cup sugar and EITHER 1 tablespoon of confectioners sugar or cornstarch. I didn’t have cornstarch but I did have confectioners sugar and it worked great. Mix it together and set to the side.
In a separate bowl mix together 1/4 cup all purpose unbleached flour, 1/4 cup light brown sugar, 1/8 cup sugar, 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon, 1 pinch of kosher salt, 1/4 cup of oats, 3 tablespoons cold unsalted butter cut into small pieces. You want to mix it together to incorporate the butter. If you have a pastry cutters that would be great to use. My butter was pretty hard because I took it from the freezer and I don’t have a pastry cutter so I put all of the ingredients for the topping in a food processor and pulsed it a couple of times. You’re just trying to get the butter into small crumbles.
OK, first divide the berry mixture into 3 ramekins. Then top each one with the topping we just made. Put a lot because as it cooks, the berries come over the mixture. Place the ramekins on a cookie sheet so in case anything spills over there won’t be a big mess in your oven.
After 35 minutes this is what you get…
Messy and gooey but so good! The berries smooth out and get much sweeter as they cook. In my case as you see the berry mixture bubbled over the top. Good thing they were on a cookie sheet! This would be great with ice cream but I just ate it solo. I want to make more!!
Do you like to pick your own fruit and veggies? What are your favorite farms?
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