saskatoon

Adventures with Saskatoon Recipes

Living with the Land

So I tried a few recipes and processes with these awesome for you berries.  I discovered how healthy these berries are for you.  They have antioxidants, calcium (1/5 daily requirement in 100g), fiber (24% of daily requirements in 100g), iron, manganese, magnesium (1/4 daily requirements in 100g), phytosterols (good for cholesterol problems), and vitamin E (https://prairieberries.com/health-nutrition/).  So much goodness in this little berry!

IMG_6663I’ve made salad with saskatoons, porridge with saskatoons, smoothies, dehydrated saskatoons, muffins, drink mixes and I still have a bunch! I’m wondering what I will do next. I’m thinking a saskatoon crumble . . .

I am not a food blogger, but I thought I’d share the fun I’ve had. First I tried the juice as I’ve been looking for an easy, tasty, alcohol free beverage that feels like a treat. And I found it!!! I adapted a recipe that called for 1 cup of white sugar to 2 cups of berries.  I used coconut palm sugar instead, but it was way too sweet, so I had to make more berry juice.  Here’s about what I did, but since I did it in stages it’s not totally accurate.

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Saskatoon Kale Salad with Saskatoon Juice

Saskatoon Juice Recipe

Ingredients

3/4 cups coconut palm sugar

1/2 cup water

4 cups of saskatoons

2 cups of water

Directions

  1. Put coconut sugar and 1/2 cup of water in a small sauce pan and heat over medium heat stirring  occasionally until dissolved
  2. While the sugar is dissolving, put saskatoons in a medium sauce pan. Mash the saskatoons with a mortar and pestle or potato masher.  I did the first batch this way and the second I boiled the saskatoons first and then mashed and then boiled some more and then mashed.  Add remaining water.
  3. Bring saskatoons and water to a boil (mash as needed).  Boil for 5-10 minutes.
  4. Strain the saskatoons (keep the pulp for using later, I made muffins with some of it)
  5. Squeeze as much juice out as you can, use cheese cloth or a sprouting bag or a thin sieve.
  6. Mix the sugar water and the saskatoon juice together
  7. Use about a 1/4 cup per 8 oz. glass of water (or sparkling water, or tonic, or …), tastes great with a half a lime squeezed in, add a few berries to float for a bit a decadence
  8. Store in the fridge for up to 5 days or freeze in ice cube trays for future use

I ended up making too much juice to fit the container I was using so I just froze that juice (without the sugar added) into ice cube trays and have been adding them to my morning smoothies, yum!  I love the deep colour it adds!

img_6866.jpgSaskatoon Berry Pulp Muffins

I adapted this recipe from http://www.picklesnhoney.com/juicer-pulp-muffins/

Makes 12 muffins

Ingredients

1/2 cup saskatoon pulp

1/4 cup agave nectar or other syrup sweetener (I used 1/8 agave and 1/8 coconut nectar syrup, because that’s what I had)

1/4 cup coconut oil, melted

1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce

1 1/2 cups flour (I used 3/4 cups of GF oat flour and 3/4 cups of Emmer flour)

1 teaspoon baking soda.

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon.

1/2 teaspoon sea salt.

hemp nut about 1/4 cup, enough to sprinkle on each muffin

fresh saskatoons about 1/2 cup, enough to add a few to the tops of each muffin

Directions

  1. Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees F. I used silicone cups, but if you don’t, grease the muffin tin).
  2. In a large bowl, add the juicer pulp, the agave nectar, coconut oil, and applesauce. Stir to combine.
  3. Sift in the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt. Mix with a wooden spoon until just combined. The batter will be very thick.
  4. Transfer the batter to the muffin pan add saskatoons (be sure to press them in a bit or they will fall off) then sprinkle with hemp nut and bake for 10-12 minutes. A toothpick inserted in the center should come out clean when they’re done.

Saskatoon Kale Summer Salad

Makes a salad for 1

Ingredients

5-6 large fresh kale leaves

1 small head of broccoli

1/2 an avocado

6 Cherry tomatoes cut in 1/4’s

a generous handful of saskatoons

1 Tbs of hemp hearts

1 Tbs of sunflower seeds or other seed nut mixture

fresh sprouts (I used broccoli sprouts) about 1/4 cup

oil of choice (I used sunflower oil) about 1 tsp

vinegar of choice (I’ve use balsamic and apple cider at different times) about 1 tsp

salt and pepper to taste

Directions

  1. De-stem kale and rip into small pieces
  2. Add to medium sized bowl, add oil, vinegar and some salt
  3. Massage the oil and vinegar into the kale.  The kale will change colour to a vibrant green and will reduce substantially in size. Wash hands 🙂
  4. Cut broccoli as desired, I like it small
  5. Cube avocado and squeeze out of skin
  6. Add the remaining ingredients in order and top with a little extra salt and pepper if desired

Of course any of these ingredients can be substituted for any other.  It has been such a good salad I’ve made it every day for 3 days running.

 

I’ll post the Saskatoon crumble after I’ve made it.  Enjoy this beautiful day!

Saskatoons!!!

Living with the Land

Well, it is saskatoon season here at Cultivation Peace.  I was hoping they would be ripe for the picking when my niece was here a week ago.  They were beginning to ripen then and we did pick enough for a pie, but they are in full berry now!  Last year they were ready to pick in the first week of July, this year, I think because we have had limited rain and a late summer they didn’t have enough sun or water to bloom that soon.

When I bought the house, the previous owner told me there were saskatoon bushes around the house.  It took me 3 years to check it out.  I had an aversion to forging for food, I am not sure where that comes from in the specific sense, but for some reason I have a fear about it.  I ended up saskatoon picking with some friends of mine on their property and since then I have been harvesting my own.  From what I understand, the more you pick a bush the more berries it produces the following year.  Well, this year, after 4 years of picking I had to take a break before I got through 1 patch, there are so many berries!

I still have a bag of frozen berries from last year, so I have to figure out what to do with all of these lovely purple berries so they don’t go to waste.  I am going to try a few recipes.  I’ve been having a hard time finding a special drink that is delicious, but not full of sugar and other crazy ingredients, so I’ve decided to try to make some savory ‘syrups’ for lack of a better word.  I am going to try a recipe that I will post if it turns out that reduces the berries with a coconut palm sugar for a bit of sweet as a base and then try adding other flavors such as lemon, or mint, or something like that.  I heard about some homemade reduction type mixes for non-alcoholic drinks so I’m trying a few things out.  I am also going to try a granola of sorts and to add some to a protein ball recipe and see how it goes.  I might also dehydrate some and see how they fair as ‘raisins’.

So, I spent around 2 hours picking from my hammock to the road (not a very large space, but full of bushes).  My fingers are purple and my body was getting sore.  I have to wear rubber boots and long pants because every time I don’t, I end up with some sort of poison ivy or oak from being in the bush back there.  I got some again behind my right knee from when I picked with my niecey.  Rubber boots aren’t the most supportive . . . I really should get some good insoles for them 🙂 The bushes were beautiful and dripping with ripe purple berries, many of the bushes are quite tall back there, fighting for the sun I imagine, but they are so flexible I can just pull them down to get to the tip top berries.

I absolutely love the nature of this place.  I am currently listening to 4 baby barn swallows chirp away waiting to be fed.  The parents built a nest above my door last year and I decided to see how it went.  It was so neat watching them, and then they had babies and watching that whole process was so cool.  The down side was once the babies hatched the adults pooped all over my deck and in front of my door in particular, so I decided I would not let them nest there again this year.  I fought with them for 3 weeks, knocking down their nest repeatedly, but they just kept rebuilding.  I finally got worried that they would not have a nest ready for their babies so I gave in and let them build.  I am not sure exactly why I attracted this experience, is it because I have some emotion to work out about always meeting other’s needs first? or that I have some emotion around sharing and being taken advantage of? or something else entirely?  I’m not really working that one, but it is playing around in the back of my mind.

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I also just saw a hummingbird chasing another smaller bird, that’s the first time I’ve seen that.  I usually have flowers out that the hummers can eat, but this year they did not bloom and I am not doing a lot of planting, so I have not seen as many of those awesome little birds as I like to.

Now, I have 4 liters of saskatoons and I’m leaving them on the deck to let the critters crawl out of them, then I’ll wash them and start to process them in some way, with leaving a bowl out for snacking of course.  They are a weird little berry, not very sweet with a seedy texture, but the darker they are the sweeter they are and handfuls are so delicious!

I’ll be going out again tomorrow or later today to finish that section and see where else they are growing.  I saw a whole bunch out my window just in the forest that I’ll have to check out.