Oh, boy. . .I can barely wait. The entire meadow across the creek is growing wild with blackberries, and they have moved from green to red, so it won't be long now! I can almost taste the blackberry cobbler. ( my favorite).

I'm going to make blackberry flavored vinegar, and can/freeze some more for winter cobblers, and dry some berries and leaves. Probably won't make jelly or jam.

Any ideas for other blackberry treats. Wine would be nice, but I'd like a simple recipe. . . . . I don't like the tubes and distilling methods.

If only you guys in the upper regions could share some of that rain this would be a most wonderful summer! ( And send some to Colorado and Arizona - - I'm so stressed watching the homes of people and animals going up in flames).

-- Granny Hen (cluckin along@cs.com), June 28, 2002

Answers

make ice cream with them,, add to yogurt, eat them as you pipck them, (my favorite) How about posting your recipe for the vinegar??

-- Stan (sopal@net-pert.com), June 28, 2002.

Here's my recipe for blackberry brandy: Buy a 1-liter bottle of cheap brandy. Drink one-half of the brandy while you're picking blackberries. This is for medicinal purposes only; it numbs your body against all the pricks and stabs of the blackberry brambles, dontcha know.

To the half full bottle of brandy add 1 cup of sugar. Dissolve the sugar by shaking the bottle. Then fill the rest of the bottle up with fresh blackberries. Set the bottle aside for 1 month so all the flavor is leached from the berries.

When the 1 month is up, enjoy the blackberry elixer. When the elixer is gone, you can uses the soggy blackberries with yougurt, ice cream or pancakes.

--Happy trails, Cabin Fever

This recipe also works great with pin cherries and chokecherries. One o' these days, I'm gonna try making apricot brandy using dried apricots. I use vodka instead of brandy for raspberries and strawberries.

-- Cabin Fever (cabinfever_MN@yahoo.com), June 28, 2002.

Hmm, I'll have to try that Cabin, thanks. :)

-- Patty (SycamoreHollow@aol.com), June 28, 2002.

I like the brandy recipe. I would like to know how you make the vinegar also. We have lots of blackberrys coming also.

-- Joanie (ber-gust@prodigy.net), June 28, 2002.

We have a 4 acre pasture way back on the property which we've let go back wild for the last 3 yrs. I went down there yesterday and have about 3 acres of blackberries!! I'm going to have to take the DR mower down to cut paths through-they're really loaded too!! I'm thinking some blackberry sauce over grilled boneless pork chops, herbed new potatoes,salad & fresh peach cobbler for dessert. Yum! Can you tell I haven't had breakfast yet? :)

-- Kathy Aldridge (beckoningwinds@yahoo.com), June 29, 2002.

All the talk about blackberries has got me hungry, guess I'll need to make the many hour trip to the grocery and buy some as they don't grow around here. I too would like info. on the vinegar, have been working on making my own but no good luck so far.

-- BC (desertdweller44@yahoo.com), June 29, 2002.

I have not been able to figure out how to copy and paste on this Lusenet format. If someone knows - - please tell me! ! !

Now - the vinegar. I don't make it from "scratch". I make batches from three different types of vinegar - - white wine, cider, and regular white vinegar. In essence I make "fruit-flavored" vinegar with the blackberries.

Go to Google.com and type in "fruit-flavored vinegar recipes", and choose one. There is one that takes 14 days to make, ( I'm going to try that one this year - it is at: www.essortment.com/in/recipes.general

But for the most part, it takes just an hour or so.

You heat the vinegar with the fruit, some recipes call for sugar if you want the vinegar sweet for dressings, I make some without adding sugar, just boiling the fruit with the vinegar, then you run the cooked fruit and vinegar through a sieve, and bottle it. You can add a few berries to the bottle for decoration. I have made some adding herbs to the bottle.

Really simple to do.

-- Granny Hen (cluckin along@cs.com), June 30, 2002.

Cabin, I like your style! ! Smiling.

-- Granny Hen (cluckin along@cs.com), June 30, 2002.

In regards the wildfires....I was chattin' with a gal born and raised in Co. last night. She just couldn't stop crying. This is one tough chic, but after weeks of helping evacuate horses and other stock, she was exhausted and brokenhearted...really hit me.

-- Patty (SycamoreHollow@aol.com), June 30, 2002.

Gently cook berries in a SMALL amount of water, & squeeze the juice out. Fill a canning jar with berries, and pour the juice over it. Process in a water bath like jelly.

I sweeten it after I open it up. It makes REALLY intense flavor for blackberry shortcake or ice cream topping. The "blackberry juice" in the cans is sweetened with pear juice or something, and the intense flavor just isn't there!

-- Terri (hooperterri@prodigy.net), July 02, 2002.

STEVIA IS THE ANSWER TO SWEETENING UP THE BLACKBERRY VINEGAR, OR TO SWEETEN UP OTHER NOT SO FUN FOODS. STEVIA IS A HERB THAT HAS A GROWTH HABIT SIMALAR TO A MINT. THE LEAVES RELEASE A GLYCOSIDE IF PLACED IN WARM OR HOT LIQUIDS. ALTHOUGH IT IS VERY SWEET TASTING IT HAS NO SUGAR IN IT.. NO SUGAR! CAN YOU IMAGINE A PLANT THAT THE LEAVES CAN BE SIMPLY PICKED AND USED TO SWEETEN UP THE TASTE OF FOODS. THESE STEVIA PLANTS ARE 300 TO 400 TIMES SWEETER THAN SUGAR! I'M THIRD GENERATION GROWER. MY STEVIA PLANTS CAME FROM PERU. I SELL THESE POTTED PLANTS FOR $2.50 EACH. SHIPPING IS $5.00 FOR 2 PLANTS. THESE ARE STRONG GROWING 1 YEAR PLANTS. YOU CAN USE SMALL AMOUNTS OF THE HERB, OR IF YOU WANT MORE SWEETNESS AS A FLAVORING THEN USE MORE. THE MORE STEVIA YOU USE THE HEATHIER YOU WILL BE. ITS LOADED WITH VITAMINS AND MINERALS. CAN YOU IMAGINE HARVESTING 6 LBS. OF THIS SUPER CONCENTRATED HEALTH FOOD FROM JUST ONE STEVIA PLANT PER YEAR?

-- RODERICK L. PAGNOSSIN (karma3cat@aol.com), November 06, 2003.

STEVIA IS THE ANSWER TO SWEETENING UP THE BLACKBERRY VINEGAR, OR TO SWEETEN UP OTHER FUN FOODS. STEVIA IS A HERB THAT HAS A GROWTH HABIT SIMALAR TO A MINT. THE LEAVES RELEASE A GLYCOSIDE IF PLACED IN WARM OR HOT LIQUIDS. ALTHOUGH IT IS VERY SWEET TASTING IT HAS NO SUGAR IN IT.. NO SUGAR! CAN YOU IMAGINE A PLANT THAT THE LEAVES CAN BE SIMPLY PICKED AND USED TO SWEETEN UP THE TASTE OF FOODS. THESE STEVIA PLANTS ARE 300 TO 400 TIMES SWEETER THAN SUGAR! I'M THIRD GENERATION GROWER. MY STEVIA PLANTS CAME FROM PERU. I SELL THESE POTTED PLANTS FOR $2.50 EACH. SHIPPING IS $5.00 FOR 2 PLANTS. THESE ARE STRONG GROWING 1 YEAR PLANTS. YOU CAN USE SMALL AMOUNTS OF THE HERB, OR IF YOU WANT MORE SWEETNESS AS A FLAVORING THEN USE MORE. THE MORE STEVIA YOU USE THE HEATHIER YOU WILL BE. ITS LOADED WITH VITAMINS AND MINERALS. CAN YOU IMAGINE HARVESTING 6 LBS. OF THIS SUPER CONCENTRATED HEALTH FOOD FROM JUST ONE STEVIA PLANT PER YEAR?

-- RODERICK PAGNOSSIN (karma3cat@aol.com), November 06, 2003.