My husband has been busy picking blackberries these past few days.  They are coming fast and furious now!  Its a good thing we like them. 

I do try to freeze as many as I can for winter crumbles and such, but I also like to bake him a few tasty desserts with them as well!

 

Nothing could be easier than this Easy Blackberry Galette Recipe!  It has to be one of the quickest, simplest things to make, and its really delicious and tasty when done.

 

You can make your own pastry for it if you wish.  

I highly recommend my Butter and Lard pastry. It is what I like to use for all of my pies and pastries, sweet and savoury.

 

I also keep ready made all butter short crust pastry in the freezer for use in last minute desserts such as this galette, which makes it even quicker and easier, literally totally NON-FAFF!

 

Just unroll it, and place it on a baking sheet lined with baking paper . . .

 

Pile your picked and cleaned fresh berries in the middle.  I can't speak for using frozen ones for this as I have never done so. 

 Frozen ones probably give off more juice and would take longer to cook. I would thaw and drain them first.

 

You might think it is too many berries, but they shrink when they are cooking and even though you think you have lots, you will end up with a few empty spots, but that's okay.  Still tastes marvellous.

 

You fold the edge of the pastry up over the berries all around the outsides, overlapping it a bit in the corners (my favourite bit!).  

Sprinkle some sugar over the blackberries, only 2 TBS, and bake . . . I like to brush the edges with a bit of milk and sprinkle on some demerara sugar for a bit of a crunch.

 

And I like to dust the finished galette with icing sugar  . . .  its so very pretty . . . it reminds me of lace petticoats  . . .

  

The corner pieces are my favourite bits because I love pastry and I am a glutton . . . 

 

Blackberries were not something we got to eat very much when I was a child. They made my mother cringe. They always made her think of large black ants. 

She could not bring herself to touch or cook with them, let alone eat them . . .

 

Thankfully I have no such problem with them.  I quite simply love them. 

Raw. Cooked.  Baked in pies or crumbles.  Made into jams and jellies.  Yes, I love them a great deal!

 

When we lived in Meaford, Ontario, we lived in an old farmhouse just outside of town on the county line.  

We were surrounded by apple orchards, some in production and some gone wild, and woodlands filled with wild blackberries.

 

I have fond memories of picking the with my sister one weekend when she had come up for a visit.  I made jars and jars of blackberry jelly that year. Oh it was sooooo good!  Best part was getting to do it all with my sister.  

Top Tip - when brambling (blackberry picking) wear gloves and long sleeves!  That way you don't get as scratched up!

  

Also if you are picking wild brambles, soak them in salted water for about 10 minutes prior to using. Wild blackberries can have quite a few grubs in them, so this helps to get rid of them.  

They die and float to the top of the water so you can easily scoop them out.

 

Todd loves his galette with plenty of rich double cream for pouring  . . .

 

Drizzled down over top of the warm galette  . . .  forming rich little rivulets in between the berries . . .

 

Turning pink in places  . . . .

 

staining your hands, the plate, and your teeth  . . .

   

There is no finer dessert to start off the  month of September.  Truly not  . . . .

 

My husband was in heaven.  I thought it would slow him down with the berry picking for a day or two, but he was back out there again today.  I guess instead of slowing him down, it inspired him to pick even more! 

Up Tomorrow:  Crispy Herbed Potato Rosettes 

A flight of fancy on my part . . . 

  

The Great British Bake Off started again this week. Personally, I don't think it is as good since it moved to Channel 4.  I miss Mary Berry, I really do.  I am not a huge fan of Channel 4.  It panders to the younger population, with a lot of reality, shock and garbage shows.  I have noticed each year that the contestants on Bake Off are getting younger and younger.  This year there is only one who appears to be slightly older than 40, with most appearing still wet behind their ears.  I'm not sure I like it.  I prefer the old GBBO for sure.

 

 Whenever I bake oatmeal muffins I always think of my middle son Doug, and the trips we used to take into Toronto to spend the day at my ex SIL's . They lived in a lovely house just off Avenue Road, in a somewhat Jewish area of the city.

 

My BIL would bring home a couple of big bags of fresh bagels from the Jewish bakery, and little paper sacks of fresh rugelach . . .  my SIL would bake Oatmeal Muffins with plenty of chocolate chips added.  She used the Quaker Oatmeal Muffin Mix, which is what we all used back then.  It was perfect, or at least we thought so.  We would spend half the day feasting on all of this and just enjoying each other's company.

 

Our wee Doug loved the oatmeal muffins especially and we had some lovely photos of him eating them, with his head full of Shirley Temple curls and chocolate all over his face.  He was only about 2 or 3 at the time.  He will be 38 in November . . .  so a lot of time has passed since then.

 

Try as I might I have never been able to bake a homemade oatmeal muffin that tastes like the Quaker Oatmeal Muffin Mix did.  Or maybe it is just that things always taste better in our memories . . . 

 

Nothing can ever quite come up to our taste memories . . .  I don't think.  They are coloured with rose coloured glasses and have more to do with the people we share them with than they actually do with the food we were eating, if that makes sense.  Love is a specific flavour that is very difficult to replicate.

 

These are very good oatmeal muffins.  Flavoured with Maple syrup and brown sugar, with just a hint of cinnamon . . .

 

Stogged with toasted walnuts . . .  I love to toast all my nuts before baking with them.  They just taste nuttier, but perhaps that is just in my imagination, I don't know  . . .

 

A hefty sprinkling of demerara sugar on the tops prior to baking gives them lovely crunchy tops, that we quite like  . . .

 

Again, they rise beautifully.  I find that if I almost fill my muffin cups then the batter seems to have nowhere to go but up.  Perhaps that is my secret. I don't know.  I only know my muffins always rise beautifully.

 

They have a lovely light texture . . .  a perfect muffin texture . . .  full of lovely little holes  . . .

  

My younger self would have enjoyed these, eaten hot and  liberally spread with butter . . .

 

My older self doesn't even dare think about such a thing . . .

 

Just look at that lovely, crunchy top.  These are perfect tucked into lunch boxes for our back-to-school scholars or enjoyed with a hot cuppa for elevenses or tea break.  These are just perfect full stop! 

  

Mahi Mahi, also known as the Dorado or Dolphin fish is a beautiful fish that is not only sustainable but very easy to cook.  It has a firm white flesh that is fairly mild in flavour.  This makes it quite adaptable, hearty enough to grill and yet firm enough to sear, glaze, fry, etc.  making it very versatile. Don't confuse it with the common Dolphin.  This is not Flipper.  Don't worry. Far from being even closely related to its namesake Mahi Mahi is highly sustainable, responsibly fished and harvested due to strong regulations.  They spawn and grow rapidly, which helps to keep their population stable. 

 

The people at Seafresh recently sent me some to try. I was quite excited at the opportunity to try a new fish I had never tried before!  I decided to give it a somewhat simple treatment.  I created a sweet and savoury rub to coat it with and then simply pan seared it  until it was nicely blackened on the outside, but perfectly cooked on the inside.

 

I had to do some research on the fish first so that I knew how to cook it properly.  I learnt a lot about it and about what it might taste like. Having never tasted it before I was flying in the dark here! 

 

It is a carnivorous fish which gathers in schools which mostly eat forage fish.   The word Mahi (Hawaiian) means strong and these fish are strong and fast swimmers.  

They are brightly coloured and mostly found in Pacific waters, although they can also be found in the Atlantic.

 

They are considered to be highly nutritious and rich in Iron and low-fat protein. Low in sodium and rich in Omega-3, which not only are good for your heart but also help to combat cancer. 

 

It is also a great source of essential minerals and important B vitamins, so altogether it can be considered a fairly healthy fish to eat.  It is however high in cholesterol so if you are watching yours, you will still want to consume it in moderation.

 

I was told that it had a fairly mild flavour  . . .  not a "strong fishy" flavour.  I am not fond of overly fishy flavoured fish.  I can just about tolerate Salmon.  

So what did it taste like?  

It was definitely not benign in flavour like cod, it was probably more like Halibut, so not unpleasant at all.

  

I was quite surprised that the flesh turned out as white as it did when cooked.  It was quite darkish raw so I expected it to cook dark, but it was not dark in the least!

 

Other than that searing rub I put onto it  . . .  the interior flesh was cream-coloured when cooked . . .

 

It had a very firm texture, which I think would make it excellent for using in Fish Tacos, or for grilling on the BBQ.

 

I am thinking it would also be lovely stir fried . . .

 

I had made a lime and honey dressed coleslaw to go with it, almost like a pickle, except fresher . . .

  

It went very well.  I would highly recommend.  I can't wait to try it again one day! 

 

Here is the recipe for the sweet and tangy coleslaw which I made to serve with the fish.  It went down a real treat. Do beware however it is more like a pickle and will not keep well, so whilst you can prep the vegetables ahead of time, you shouldn't dress them until just prior to serving.

 

Here you can see how creamy white the flesh actually was when it was cooked, a complete contrast to what I had expected when I first saw this fish raw. Seafresh is an on line fish monger, which sells quality fish, seafood, poultry and meat.  If you can recall, I was very impressed with both their product and their delivery service!  There was absolutely nothing that I could fault with any of it. Feel free to read about my experience here. Many thanks to Seafresh for sending me this Mahi Mahi to try.  There doesn't appear to be any  Mahi Mahi available on their page at the moment,but keep checking back to their website to see when it becomes available again.

 

A few things about Seafresh: