Blueberry French Toast - Overnight Preparation

This recipe takes some pre-planning, but the rich desert the next morning is well worth the work.

Ingredients:
French Toast 
12 slices of day-old white bread or toasted bread
2 (8oz) packages of cream cheese
1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries
12 eggs
2 cups of milk
1/3 cup of maple syrup or honey

Sauce
1 cup of sugar
2 Tbs cornstarch
1 cup of water
1 cup of fresh or frozen blueberries
1 Tbs. butter or margarine

Directions:
Tear bread into 1-inch cubes and place half of the cubes in a 13 x 9 x 2 baking dish.  Cut cream cheese into 1 inch cubes and place cubes over bread cubes in the baking dish. Layer one cup of blueberries over cream cheese and bread.  Cover with the remaining bread cubes.  Beat eggs in a large bowl.  Add milk and honey and stir to combine.  Pour over the bread mixture.  Cover and chill for at least 8 hours.  Remove dish from refrigerator 30 minutes before baking. Cover with aluminum foil and bake for 30 minutes at 350 degrees.  Uncover dish and continue cooking for 25-30 minutes until the center is set and the top is golden brown.

In a saucepan, combine sugar and cornstarch.  Add water.  Bring to a boil over medium heat and keep boiling for three minutes while stirring constantly.  Reduce heat and stir in blueberries.  Simmer for 8-10 minutes until the berries have burst.  Stir butter into the sauce until melted.  Serve over French Toast.

Yield: 6-8 servings.

Traditional Blueberry Pancakes

A great recipe for a leisurely Saturday morning!

Ingredients:
1 1/4 cups of all-purpose flour
1 Tbs. Sugar
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt (optional)
1 1/4 cup buttermilk
2 Tbs. vegetable oil
1 beaten egg
1 cup blueberries (fresh or frozen work equally well)

Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a bowl.  In another bowl, mix buttermilk, oil and the egg.  Mix the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients until well combined.  Gently fold in blueberries.  Pour 1/4 cup of batter onto a hot skillet, turning when bubbles appear on top of pancakes.

Yield: 8 pancakes

Quick Potluck Blueberry Desert

This is a lifesaver for a busy family before a potluck!

Ingredients:
1 (16oz) container of low-fat cottage cheese
1 (8oz) container of low fat or fat free whipped desert topping
1 (3oz) box of sugar-free Jello (any flavor works well)
2 cups of fresh or frozen blueberries.

Directions:
Mix desert topping, Jello and cottage cheese together until evenly combined.  Stir in blueberries.

Blueberry and Honey Sauce

Bored with maple syrup?  This sauce will put the pizzazz back in breakfast!

Ingredients:
2 cups of blueberries
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1/2 cup of honey
1/4 cup of butter
pinch of salt (optional)

Directions:
Combine all ingredients in a saucepan and bring to a boil.  Reduce heat and simmer for 5 minutes stirring occasionally to prevent burning.  Serve the sauce warm and promptly refrigerate leftovers.

Quick Blueberry Glaze

In a hurry?  This no-fuss blueberry glaze will dress-up any desert with very little work.

Ingredients:
1 cup frozen blueberries
2 Tbs. of any fruit jelly or jam.

Directions:
Microwave the blueberries and jam together until the blueberries are warm.  Stir to coat the blueberries in the syrupy jam mixture.  Serve warm or cool.

Blueberry Sauce - Fresh

This simple, yet delicious sauce is great on sponge cake, yellow cake, angel food cake, cheesecakes... pretty much anything!

Ingredients:
5 cups fresh blueberries
1 cup water
3/4 cup of sugar
1 Tbs. cornstarch
1 Tbs. lemon juice
2 Tbs. wate

Directions:

Combine one cup of water, blueberries and sugar in a large saucepan.  Bring mixture to a boil.  In a separate bowl, combine 2 Tbs. of water with cornstarch.  Stir until a gel is formed.  When the blueberry mixture is boiling, stir the gel into the blueberries.  Cook for one minute while stirring constantly.  Remove from the heat and add lemon juice.  Cool sauce before serving.

Patriotic Parfaits!

I love parfaits during the summer months.  Here's a festive red, white, and blue parfait that is tasty and nutritious.

You need:
1 carton of fat-free vanilla yogurt
1/4 tsp of cinnamon or Chinese 5-spice powder
1/4 tsp of lemon or orange extract
8 oz of fat-free frozen whipped topping, thawed
3 cups of fresh raspberries
3 cups of fresh blueberries
1 cup of granola

To assemble:
1.  Mix the yogurt, spice and extract together.
2.  Gently fold the whipped topping into the yogurt.
3. In a large bowl, alternate layers of fruit and yogurt mixture ending with yogurt mixture on top.
4.  Cover the top layer with granola.
5.  Serve immediately or cover and refrigerate for 2 hours.

Combine Fairs and Blueberry Picking!

This weekend is wonderful for family outings especially from the Grand Rapids and Muskegon areas.

This weekend is the closing weekend of the Berlin Fair in Marne, Michigan.  There is a carnival, air dog contests, a petting zoo and lots of interesting exhibits.  Located off of I-96 (Exit 23), the fair is affordable fun for the whole family easily accessed from Grand Rapids.  

If you're coming from Muskegon, this is the opening weekend of the Muskegon County Fair!  This fair includes livestock and still exhibit showing along with fun games for the whole family.  The fairgrounds are near the intersection of I-96 and 31.

Both fairs bring you within 10 minutes of Blueberry Trails.  Stop by to get some delicious berries to end the day with!

Blueberry and Cream Cheese Sandwich

A quick, yummy and nutritious summer lunch!

Ingredients:
1/4  cup of blueberries
1 Tbs reduced-fat cream cheese
1/4 tsp of honey
2 slices of low-calorie whole wheat bread

1.  Combine the cream cheese and honey in a bowl.
2. Divide mixture in half.  Spread one half on each slice of bread.
3.  Place berries on the cream cheese spread.  Press gently on the berries to embed them in the cheese.
4.  Place the bread slices on top of each other.

Enjoy this light summer lunch!

Banana-Berry Cream Tart

Here's a wonderful fruit tart that won't wreck your diet!  It has blueberries, raspberries and bananas in a creamy tart.

recipe.com/banana-berry-cream-tart