Pick your own berry syrup

Last week, my family and I went berry picking at McBride's Briar Patch. We'd never been there before, and we were really impressed: they had buckets for you to use, ropes to tie them around your waist, little metal buckets for the kids, and bags and boxes to carry your berries home. The owner was so nice: he showed us how and where to pick and knew everything about the berries.

My 4-year-old was our best picker! She filled her entire bucket all by herself. All together, we picked 3 pounds of raspberries and 1/2 a pound of blackberries. The owner told us that since it was so hot, we should be sure to put our berries to use that day.

So that night, Ryan and I got to work turning our berries into berry syrup with this recipe from PickYourOwn.org (you can also find local PYO farms here!).

First, rinse and mash the berries. Then boil the mash.

Now strain the boiled mash (discard the pulp). You can strain it again through cheesecloth, but we found this actually pretty difficult because the cheesecloth clogged. If you have a good way to do this in volume, you might be able to let it sit overnight to get very clear juice. We settled for not-so-clear juice.

Next, add the sugar. You'll want to use right around one and a half times the amount of juice. So if you end up with 3 cups of juice, you'll use a little more or less than 4.5 cups of sugar.

The raspberry juice is still waiting, but I went ahead and made the blackberry syrup.

Bring the sugar and juice to a boil, and boil for one minute.

You can pour the juice into jars for canning, or directly into containers to keep in the fridge if you want to use it right away.

My blackberry syrup was really good, especially considering how tart the berries were. However, after a couple days in the fridge, it was almost as thick as jam! I microwaved it a little to help it flow better.

What's your favorite kind of berry?

Raspberry Key Lime Cheesecake Shakes

Thank you to everyone who has sacrificed for our freedoms this Memorial Day.

Last week, my husband and I both saw an article in the paper about milkshakes, and the same recipe caught our eyes: raspberry key lime cheesecake shakes. We knew we had to try that one! So one night after the kids went to bed, we gathered the ingredients (kind of) and got to work.

Raspberry Key Lime Cheesecake Shakes

Servings: 2

Original recipe: 3 ounces cream cheese 1 ounce (2 Tbsp) Key lime juice 1/2 cup fresh raspberries 1 cup vanilla ice cream 1/2 cup light cream

Our variation: 3 ounces cream cheese 1 ounce (2 Tbsp) lime juice 1/2 cup frozen raspberries 1 cup vanilla ice cream 1/2 cup light cream 1 tsp sugar (or xylitol) milk (to desired consistency)

In our variation, we didn't have fresh raspberries available as readily (or maybe cheaply) as frozen ones, so we substituted. That (or maybe the original recipe?) made the milkshake very thick--almost too thick--so I think we'd recommend adding some milk if you're not looking to get a hernia from trying to drink this through a regular straw.

Also, a chunk of cream cheese and a splash of lime juice do not a cheese cake or key lime pie make. Our first taste of the milkshakes were flat-out not sweet. No, not "not sweet enough"--not sweet at all. We added some xylitol, but we'd recommend adding sugar or the sweetener of your preference before blending.

Enjoy!

What are you having for dessert for Memorial Day?