Blueberries! and home grown Oregano!

I meant to post this in July, but my summer has gotten away from me!

So anyway one of the thorns in my side is

You can't grow blueberries in Utah! Something about the soil being too acid or alkaline I can never remember which.  It is very sad :-(

However my Dad was visiting my sister Paula in Nashville and They picked a bunch for me after much begging from me!

 They picked them at this Church that has tons of blueberry bushes.  You can pick as much as you want, but they encourage you leave a donation.
These blueberries were so yummy!  I made all sorts of blueberry recipes!  Blueberry muffins, blueberry waffles, blueberry syrup etc.

 Then I decided to flash freeze the rest of them so I can use them the rest of the year.  If you have never flash frozen fruit before here is how you do it.  You spread the fruit out in one single layer on a large cookie sheet.
Then stick it in the freezer and let them freeze until solid.  Then pop them off the cookie sheet and put them in a bag.  by doing this they do not stick and freeze together.  You can do this with any fruit. I do not have the patience for canning fruit so I just freeze it.  I froze my apricots and peaches last summer.  It sure beats buying expensive frozen fruit at the store and it tastes better too :-)

Another thing I did earlier this summer was pick and dry my Oregano.  I had just run out of my oregano from last years picking and so it was perfect timing :-) I have a big Oregano plant in my rock wall garden in my back yard.  I clipped the whole top of the plant.  Then I rinsed the clippings and let them drip dry on a paper towel. 

Then I tie the end together with a string and hang it from my pot rack. I let it hang until it is all dried out ( like drying flowers).

Once it is all dried out I crumble off all the  leaves from the stems and store them in an air tight container. I put mine in a zip lock bag.

 It has been nice to have a new batch of Oregano to cook with :-)