We were away for the weekend recently and when we got home a once over of the fridge revealed a pint of blueberries in the back on the top shelf. They were caught in that unfortunate point of decay where they were still perfectly edible, yet they had lost the lustrous plumpness of their prime so eating them by the handful, splashing a little sweetened milk on them, or dropping them onto granola would be pushing their luck a bit.
Luckily, this is the perfect stage to cook or bake with fruit. You can get just as much out of them in their cooked form without having to have anything go to waste. So last night as I raced around making the kids dinner, prepping the adult dinner for when Adam came home, bathing the kids, mediating their arguments, and grading papers I felt inspired to bake these blueberries into something sweet and lemony.
After taking 5 seconds to scan the “inter-webs” for recipes I found, once again, the recipe of choice came from the most reliable source I’ve discovered for baked deliciousness: Smitten Kitchen. Deb’s recipe was the simplest and had the fewest number of ingredients. Enough research, I was ready to fly into action. I halved the recipe since I had only half the number of berries her recipe called for and threw in some spices I think are essential to blueberries. Into the oven they went and out came heaven.
My bars are a bit thinner than hers, in part because my pan was a little bit big for the 1/2 recipe. But what they lack in height they make up for in oomph. Tasty goodness.