Fruit Forward: Jam is Summer’s Fruit Spin-Off

Workshops, Recipes & Our Wild Blueberry Lemon Jam


Blueberry Jam by Lori L. Stalteri, on Flickr

Just as night follows day, a deluge of fresh fruits can sometimes lead to jam. Jam is one of summer food’s wonderful spin-offs. When the luxury of copious amounts of fruit surrounds us, jam is a way to utilize our beautiful excess. It provides us with a gift for friends and neighbors and a way to recall summer’s bounty when it’s darker and colder.

We’ve discussed jam’s advantages and its caveats in a previous post (Jam-tastic! from June 2011). While its deliciousness is undisputed, it’s true that some nutrients are lost when berries turn to jams. According to Livestrong.com, boiling that occurs in the process of canning changes fruits’ enzymes, reducing its vitamins by as much as one-half to one-third. Vitamins possess the antioxidant activity that fruits like wild blueberries, for example, are famous for.

Dr. Daniel Nadeau recently pointed out that fruits like blueberries are best eaten raw or frozen to take full advantage of their disease-preventing power. Still, jam has many advantages for the healthy eater. It has half the calories of butter, which it is often substituted for, and it is low in cholesterol. And, by boiling and canning fruits yourself, you avoid processed foods with added sugar and preservatives while passing along a respectable amount of nutrient content. Did we also mention it is famously palate-pleasing? It lends a fruit forward essence to toast, cheese, crackers, yogurt – even coffee.*

Buried in Berries? Start Here

Put your fresh fruit where your mouth is and get hands-on with summer’s crop of wild blueberries. Two hands-on workshops, sponsored by the University of Maine Cooperative Extension, provide a practical lesson on making low-sugar blueberry jam and low-sugar blueberry spice jam for those who live in southern Maine. Both workshops will be taught by master food preserver Kate McCarty and will be held at 75 Clearwater Drive in Falmouth at a cost of $10. The Blueberry Jam Workshop will be held 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. Aug. 2; the Blueberry Spice Workshop will be on Aug. 11. For more information or to register, call 781-6099 or e-mail lois.elwell@maine.edu.

Jam Tomorrow, Jam Today 

When the White Queen told Alice that there would be jam yesterday and jam tomorrow but never jam today, it’s no wonder the poor girl was confused. We can relate: sometimes it seems the ever-unreachable treat will never come. It makes jam the perfect object lesson when it comes to the indulgences of summer – the promise of a little now and a little later is infinitely more digestible.

Make today’s summer tastes last until tomorrow by getting creative with your jams. Huff Post recommends a few jam recipes to inspire you. Their Mixed Berry Jam allows a mélange of summer’s berries for even bigger berry taste – the result is the “ultimate” jam. With Simplest Rhubarb Jam you won’t let one of the season’s most popular fruits go unjarred. This jam makes a luscious condiment for cheese, for example. Huff also recommends putting Fresh Fruit Butter into your repertoire. Fruit butter – for which wild blueberries are a perfect choice – doesn’t use pectin and is thick and sticky for when you’d rather smear than dollop.

Jam Don’t Shake Like That

Jam’s counterpart, jelly, is usually known for being made from an ingredient’s juice or essence rather than its crushed whole. Blueberry harvest season is a perfect opportunity to join two favored flavors in jelly form. Wild blueberries and hot peppers pop when paired – they work so well together that you’ll want this combo in everything from meats to appetizers. This Blueberry Pepper Jelly recipe is from Lauri Jon Bennett, who promises that you can jar your jams and jellies without buying lots of expensive canning equipment. (She improvises by using rubber bands wrapped around kitchen tongs to create a jar lifter.) She also offers up a recipe for “addictive” Blackberry Jam with Lemon Zest or her Peach Jam with Lemon Thyme and Almonds for some lip-smacking seasonal zing.

If even a moderate jarring operation isn’t for you, you can still enjoy jam with your bounty of blues. Use them in this easy Wild Blueberry Lemon Jam from the wildblueberries.com recipe bank that requires only jars and a boiling water canner. Waffles have never been this mouth-watering. It weighs in at 34 calories per tablespoon.

Prefer to make your own pectin? Using homemade pectin means you’re making completely natural preserves. Learn about making your own pectin for jams and jellies from pickyourown.org.

*Have a unique use for jams and jellies? Let us know by leaving a comment. We’ll use the best in our Best of Fresh Blues list! 


Top photo: Blueberry Jam

Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic License

by  Lori L. Stalteri 

The Summer Games & Wild Blueberries: A Gold Medal in Health & Taste

For Olympic athletes at the top of their game, eating a healthy diet once every four years isn’t enough. While potent nutrient-rich wild blueberries figure prominently in the diets of athletes during competition time, they are also a staple in the years of training that lead up to the big event. Whether they are vaulting, running, shooting or backstroking, Olympians often rely on blueberries because they are one of nature’s ultimate performance foods. 

Blueberries, especially powerfully nutritious wild, provide mental focus and clarity, nutrient richness, and low-calorie fiber, and they serve as a low GI food to provide steady energy over the long haul. According to Epicuious.com, U.S. Olympic swimmer Peter Vanderkaay and soccer goalie Nicole Barnhart bet their best maneuvers on blues, packing their breakfasts with blueberries in smoothies and in yogurt. In fact, recent research indicates that blueberries help muscle recovery, making smoothies a smart choice for athletes.  Even Bruce Jenner has weighed in with his own All-American Blueberry Muffins!

That powerful little blue fruit seems to be the undisputed breakfast of champions, and because the London 2012 Summer Olympics coincide with the beginning of wild blueberry harvest season, fresh is the name of the game whether you are training, recovering, throwing an Olympic-sized party, or just keeping tabs on the coverage.

Wild Blue Guide to the 2012 Games 

– Combining classic English eating with American flair is the culinary challenge during the London Summer Olympics. To kick off the opening ceremonies, this Gold Medal Summer Berry Pudding is the California Raisin Marketing Board’s homeland take the English classic. It features copious amounts of strawberries, fresh raspberries, fresh blueberries, and fresh blackberries along with California raisins of course. Way to get in the game, CA!

– The Today Show shows us how to step up to the podium with the ‘Olympic’ Eccles Cakes with Ice Cream, a delightful way to take your pride in USA to the finish and still doff your hat to the host country. Dried blueberries feature in the filling of this dessert cookie named after an English town.

– Olympic Fruit Sticks are a snack Brits and Americans alike can be chuffed about. A few favorite fruits speared onto cocktail sticks showcase the spirit of the Games with choices that represent the colors of the Olympic rings and the bounty of summer. Great for a patriotic accompaniment to a drink or snack and a super simple way to boost both pride of country and berry intake.

– When London’s calling, it’s all about cake. UK import PocketfulofDreams.com breaks a dessert record with this Patriotic Cake that shows the true colors of the host across the pond. A little shift in design and sure, you can tailor it to the country appropriate for you – we won’t tell. Either way, this cake truly “takes the biscuit”.

– Go for gold with Vanilla Cupcakes from WhatKateBaked.com – pleasingly British in its works-well-with-tea character, berries are the focal point. Fresh wild blueberries really rack up the medals for their role in this recipe, and at just the right time of year for fresh embellishments.

– Good show PBS Food, for searching out superior foodie celebrations to commemorate the 2012 Games with picks for favorite Patriotic Recipes. Some berry good highlights include:

  • Red, White and Blue Sangria from RecipeGirl.com. It deftly passes the torch of flavor, thanks to the addition of blues. Pineapple stands in for white – why not? What a way to toast to victory! 
  • Go Team USA! Open-Face Panini from PaniniHappy.com. Sliced French bread, topped with a thin layer of sweet honey, Brie, ham “stripes” and fresh blueberries send a unique message of solidarity to the home town team. Says Kathy of Panini Happy: “Sweet and savory never seems to fail. […] That warm, gently sweet burst you get when they break in your mouth is a fun part of eating these snack-like sandwiches.” A win!
  • SkinnyTaste.com’s Red, White and Blue Trifle. This recipe is destined to take home the hardware with its promise of health and low calories in sweet, fresh outsize spoonfuls. Summer’s blueberry crop provides the gold-worthy elegance that makes the dish, along with their competitively high antioxidant counterparts, fresh strawberries. Beautiful for any USA-themed celebration.  

National Blueberry Month & Summer Games Together? Celebrate Olympic style! This Mango Blueberry Greek Frozen Yogurt from Andreasrecipes.com will help you keep your eyes on the prize. (The yogurt is Greek – see what we did there?) Or, try WhatMegansMaking.com’s Greek Yogurt with Warm Black and Blueberry Sauce. For taste and health it gets – that’s right – a perfect ten. 

July 4th: Big Day for a Small Berry

Awesome Fruit Flag by Randy Son Of Robert, on Flickr

Wild blueberries and the 4th of July – few other foods do such heavy lifting when we’re feeling patriotic. This deeply loved fruit is bursting with healthful antioxidants that have dominated the news for their role in preventing cognitive decline, and even more recently, their potential to lower cholesterol. But the best thing about wild blueberries, at least on the 4th, is the ingenious and multifaceted role they play in representing one of the three colors of the Stars and Stripes. Betsy Ross had no idea when she picked up a needle that she was giving rise to this exquisite rendering of Old Glory from Hostess (with the Mostess). From patriotic cupcakes to tantalizing salad, salsa and pie, wild blueberries are in glorious use all around the country this week. 

Inspired kitchenistas know to use wild – they are small but they are formidable, with extraordinary benefits that can carry the day. Their smaller size means more berries in every bite, less water content, and heightened nutritive benefits. As if we needed another reason to be grateful for this near-perfect fruit.              

What a big moment for such a small berry! Happy 4th of July – enjoy!


Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic License  Randy Son Of Robert  



Enter the Strawberry

A Season of Picking, Festivals & Shortcake Begins
strawberries by Greencolander, on Flickr

Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic License  by  Greencolander 

When strawberries are in season, no one will blame you for dropping everything to get to the nearest fruit stand – whether it’s an expanse that covers acres, or just a girl with a glass jar and a folding table. Cartons bursting with shiny crimson-colored fruit are all you need to start feeling like summer is truly here.

Strawberries are beloved for their sweet delicious flavor, and when they are picked fresh from the field, there is nothing like them. They are, like wild blueberries, a strong contender for a powerful antioxidant food. They are also associated with exciting new brain health studies that show that they, along with blueberries, hold big promise under their colorful skin in the prevention of age-related brain deterioration, including Alzheimer’s.

Low in calories, strawberries are high in vitamin C, folate, potassium and manganese. Their anti-inflammatory properties that help preserve brain health also fight certain cancers, provide cardiovascular support, help regulate blood sugar and decrease risk of type 2 diabetes. PickYourOwn.org even tells us that strawberry juice can serve as a salve for feverish patients and cool a sunburn!

Most of all, strawberries are a fun, versatile ingredient that thrill the palate in everything from pies to salsas. So open the door to summer and surrender to this ruby red fruit. It’s time to indulge in all things strawberry.

Fields & Festivals Devoted to Strawberries

Locals will tell you, Maxwell’s Strawberry Farm is a goldmine for growing and picking strawberries in Southern Maine. Located in the Two Lights area of Cape Elizabeth, they invite pickers to pick to their heart’s content for $2.39/pound. Be sure to call the Strawberry Hotline (207-799-3383) beforehand to make sure the fields are not closed for ripening.

To make the most of the season, Maxwell’s is host to the 2012 Strawberry Festival which takes place Saturday, June 30th. It’s real kicks-off is Friday evening, though, with a Lobsterbake & Pig Roast Fund Raiser. The next day at the festival, visitors will encounter strawberry treats, music, a wide range of artisans and vendors, and plenty of activities for kids, including tractor rides, and hot air balloon rides. 

Or, head south on Saturday to South Berwick (it’s right on the New Hampshire border) to the annual South Berwick Strawberry Festival where the usual shenanigans of this self-described small town country event ensues, including entertainment, food, artisans, and plenty of strawberry shortcakes.

Strawberry Recipes to Kick Off the Season

It’s no crime to eat your berries straight from the carton, but using them in extraordinary recipes may be what they were created for. Just in the nick of time, The Portland Press Herald offers recipes for the season from local Maine culinary experts, including Strawberry Crepe Cake from Erin Lynch, kitchen manager of Rosemont Market & Bakery, and Strawberry and Finger Banana Fritters, a wow of a dish, compliments of Chef Carmen Gonzalez of the Danforth Inn.

Southern Living has has in-season recipes like Strawberry-Fruit Toss with Cornmeal Shortcakes, and Strawberry-Turkey-Brie Panini to put strawberries to work in something other than dessert. Also in keeping with the season, Cooking Light is a mouth-watering resource for all things strawberry, among them Strawberry Granita and Lavender-Scented Strawberries with Honey Cream. (They have layer cake, too.)

Finally, Food52.com, where home cooks spread their wings, has a Strawberry Salad that is a stunner for summer. It’s a combination of strawberries, balsamic vinegar and greens; making it exclusively from farmer’s market loot is a must. The salad is a runner-up to the grand prize winner, the utmost in summer desserts, Strawberries with Lavender Biscuits. Tender biscuits with delightful undertones of lavender separate this lovely interpretation of the traditional shortcake from the pack.

Berry Synergistic

One of the best things about strawberries is their palate-pleasing pairing with wild blueberries. Together, these berries offer a complex flavor with surprising sweetness and tang, and an antioxidant burst that pumps up health benefits to the max.
“When you combine different antioxidant foods, you get synergy,” says Dr. Dan Nadeau, Medical Director for Diabetes and Endocrinology Associates of York Hospital and co-author of The Color Code. Synergy refers to combining healthy foods in a way that results in an even bigger benefit to health than the two would have apart. For example, combining wild blueberries and walnuts or strawberries can increase the impact they have when eaten separately, creating a burst of protection when it comes to our bodies.

Synergistic dishes for strawberry season that are high in nutrition and bursting with color include Confessions of and Overworked Mom’s Strawberry Blueberry Crumble Pie. Martha Stewart has her say with a Red and White Blueberry Trifle, a synergistic recipe that is perfect for the 4th of July.

Find a “pick your own” farm in Maine, or close by in New Brunswick.

Be a Culinary Star!

Delicious Wild Blueberry Dishes Will Turn You Into a Top Chef

Why do chefs love cooking with wild blueberries? Steve Corry, Owner and Chef at Portland’s 555 and Petite Jacqueline Restaurants (and a Food & Wine pick for its 10 Best Chefs) breaks it down: deeper color and more intense flavor than their cultivated cousins. Wild is a requirement for recipes at Corry’s restaurants where there are no compromises, and for many award-winning chefs wild means better performance in the kitchen and better reviews in the dining room.

Spicy Tortilla Salad with Wild Blueberries

Feel like channeling a top chef? With summer upon us, wild blueberries provide vibrant color and uniquely sweet taste that creates seasonal dishes worth raving about. Plus, if you live in Maine or Canada, serving dishes with a nod to the region is simply de rigueur. Here are three recipe ideas that exemplify these virtues to kick off your own personal culinary extravaganza.

Super Summer Salad 

Spicy Tortilla Salad with Wild Blueberries elevates salad with an inspired mixture of fruit and warmth that is dazzling to look at and utter fun to eat. Apples and peppers combine with wild blueberries, flour tortillas, and goat cheese to complete the flavor profile. (Check out other delicious salads for summer.)

An Ideal Duck Pairing

Duck Breast with Wild Blueberry Sauce

If you are looking for a special entrée that shows off the unique sweet-sour taste of wild blueberries, try duck. Duck with wild blueberries is a signature combination at Corry’s restaurants – its popularity is due to a flavor that works tangy blues against savory duck. Wild blues are also ideal to add acidity and cut the fat content of the dish. This Duck Breast with Wild Blueberry Sauce is the perfect example. You can buy conveniently packaged duck breasts at most the grocery stores (and stop by the freezer section to stock up on wild blues).

Wild Blueberry Baselito

Summer Cocktail 

It may not be first on your list of ways to use wild blueberries, but in fact, this underrated drink ingredient shines in summer cocktails. This Wild Blueberry Baselito is one example of how blues play a part in celebrating the season. Wild blueberries, basil and rum (though this drink is fantastic with or without) make an ultracool cocktail for sipping on the porch.

Top Maine Chefs Love Wild Blueberries. Watch What Makes Chefs Go Wild and see why area chefs use exclusively wild, and how they are inspired to use them in award-winning baked goods and dishes.

Find more wild blue recipe ideas at WildBlueberries.com. 

Wild Blueberry Favorites – Your Top 5 Recipes

Need a Healthy Eating Idea? These Favorites are Tried, True & Blue

Looking for a new dining or dessert idea that’s big on health and just as big on taste? We’ve assembled the top most-viewed recipes from wildblueberries.com from the last twelve months and made them into our – that is, your  – countdown of the Top 5 Wild Blueberry Recipes. Of all the unique, creative ways to use wild blueberries, why do these recipes keep coming out on top? The answer is palpable. Here, you be the judge.

#5: Wild Blueberry Chicken Breast

We were delighted to see a non-dessert recipe show up in the past year’s Top 5: This one is perfect for its easy pairing of protein with the sweet, tangy taste of wild blueberry sauce. The secret: deglazing the pan with red wine, wild blueberries, lemon rind and salt. It turns chicken into a superfruit specialty. Using frozen wild blues means you can keep this recipe up your sleeve for any time you want something unique, easy, and big on healthy ingredients.

#4: Wild Blueberry Crisp

The jury is in: we simply can’t resist a crisp – the crunch, the sweetness, and the satisfaction is what makes this dessert a true favorite. This crisp recipe delights over and over again because of its fruit combination (apples paired with blues) and its ease. Add chopped pecans if you wish for an additional nutty crunch – undeniable dessert excellence.

#3: Brownie Dominoes with Wild Blueberry Cinnamon Sauce
Brownies are a consistent, seasonless favorite, and this recipe comes in at #3 for its winning combination that rose quietly above the rest. It must be its chocolately flavor that pairs so wonderfully with blueberries. Served with wild blueberry sauce as recommended gives them the crave-worthy quality that makes them a list topper. Hard to believe, but these are Color Code health-approved, too.

#2:  Wild Blueberry Pie

The second place spot for popularity over the last 12 months is no surprise – it’s a pie classic that stands the test of time because it is always flawless and delicious. Winning out over more inventive desserts, Wild Blueberry Pie reigns for its supreme beauty (and rustic lattice-top crust, if you choose) and its bountiful six cups of wild blueberries that flow past its corners. Wildly delicious? Agreed.

#1: Wild Blueberry Smoothie

What makes this recipe the top visited recipe of the last year? There’s no secret that the smoothie is a beloved way to get healthy antioxidants. While nutrition experts advocate eating the whole fruit rather than those in juiced form to preserve desirable fiber, the Wild Blueberry Smoothie fits the bill. It contains all the fiber of the whole fruit, and all the dark blue skins where beneficial phytos reside. Add the benefits of yogurt and honey to this naturally sweet concoction, and yep, it’s the best of the best.

#1 Recipe, Wild Blueberry Smoothie, is a star in health.

Runner-Up: An Easy Summer Dessert. Looking for an easy, colorful, warm-weather dessert that everyone will love? Try #6 on our list, Wild Blueberry Cassis Mousse Cake, a perfect choice for summer.

Check out our new look! A brand new design for wildblueberries.com means searching for all our best recipes is even easier and more fun, whether it’s for breakfasts, snacks, salads, entrees, desserts or a delightful summer drink. (Bookmark us for when you need a delicious, antioxidant-rich dish any time of day!)

May is National Salad Month

Rediscover a Side with Style
Caprese - 16 by L. Marie, on Flickr
Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic License  by  L. Marie 

Of all the outrageous food holidays (National Catfish Month? National Root Beer Float Day?), a month devoted to salads may seem on the surface to be the most unnecessary. We are more than versed in the cafeteria or grocery store salad bar, after all. Salads are a ubiquitous side dish, and they are even a popular fast food option. But if you are doing your level best to get your fruit and veggie servings every day, putting the spotlight on the salad may be just what you need to raise your servings quotient and rediscover what salad has to offer.

The Salad Advantage

Besides incorporating large amounts of veggies and fruit, salads arrive on the scene with their own built-in advantages. They are filling and fibrous, they are interesting to eat, and they provide variety that makes it almost impossible not to eat from the rainbow. Salads also come with their own deep history that makes them a surprisingly good fit as comfort food – fix a Cobb salad, a Waldorf salad or a little lime Jell-O and you’re instantly transported to the early 20th century. What’s more, salads deliver on a budget: salad-making is the stone soup of the American kitchen due to their uncanny ability to incorporate a fridge’s odds and ends and stretch a single chicken thigh or a sole carrot into a eight-serving dish.

So why not a month that pays homage to the ultimate vegetable delivery system? This May, get creative and make salad the meal, or decide that a salad dish will accompany every dinner plate. You might even take the opportunity to plan a salad-centric garden by experimenting with interesting greens that will inspire your salad days in the months to come.

In May, It’s Easy Being Green

Whether your penchant is to toss or to spin, here are three basic principles to live by as you embark on a month devoted to a pastiche of produce.

Know your greens. If you are still rocking the iceberg, it’s time to dump the colorless crunch and embrace dark leafies. Romaine or spinach provide the deep colors that indicate they are a food full of powerful antioxidants, for instance. You can also opt for no greens at all. Europeans are notorious for salads that use tomatoes or bell peppers as the under layer – tomato and mozzarella caprese salad is a beloved meal accompaniment, no greens necessary.

Make your own dressing. It’s a well-known salad trap: you start with a dish of healthy, and then ruin a good thing with fattening salad dressing. The solution? Forgo the supermarket bottles and take matters into your own hands so you have full control over your ingredients. Opt for basic vinaigrette, or make your own Russian by using low-fat yogurt. HuffPost’s Kitchen Daily covers the spread of DIY dressing, and Real Simple’s Simplystated.com has 6 Ridiculously Easy Homemade Salad Dressings including Creamy Tarragon and Avocado and a simple Thousand Island that kids will love.

Eat what you love. Silly for avocados? Think wild blueberries are the bomb? Can’t resist pasta? They are all ingredients that make salad sensational. If your salad seems a little dull, include a favorite topping that makes it delectable, whether it’s homemade croutons like these corn bread croutons that add killer crunch, or a sprinkle of parmesan. And don’t stint on the protein. Chicken, eggs or tofu can make a side into an instant meal. A part of using high-calorie foods moderately, decide to opt for the exciting flavor or olives instead of bacon, for example, and if you are cutting calories, a dash of Kosher salt might be enough to make dull different.

Salad Sensational

Cooking Light has 5-Ingredient Salads that run the gamut from Chicken and Spring Greens with Açai Dressing to Steak Salad with Creamy Horseradish Dressing.

Wild blueberries shine in salad! Blues add glorious, nutritious color that instantly upgrades a salad’s flavor profile. Case in point, this Duck, Spinach and Goat Cheese Salad with Savory Wild Blueberry Sauce. Quinoa Salad with Wild Blueberries is a delicious dish that uses zucchini and Havarti cheese to create a superior flavor mix with wild blues.

Dig In: Purple Potatoes Have Vibrant Health Benefits

Purple Potatoes by razvan.orendovici, on Flickr
Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic License  by  razvan.orendovici 

Ever wish your favorite comfort food had a bit more pizzazz? It may be high time to diversify from your average meat and potatoes dinner, and this brightly colored vegetable is just the thing. The skin of the purple potato provides a shock of color that can snap us out of our yellow- and red-skinned comas, and boost our health at the same time.

The flesh of these colorful nightshades, praised recently in Mark Bittman’s New York Times column On Growing (And Eating Potatoes), come in many blue and purple varieties, though the Purple Viking and Purple Majesty are two of the most popular for their intense color. They have deep violet, ink-colored skin, and the flesh inside ranges from solid blue to speckled. Perhaps best of all, they taste just like the good old potato that we like so much.

Unearth Healthy Color 

We know that blueberries are uniquely advantageous to health because of the pigment in the skin – that deep blue-purple color is a sign of antioxidant richness. Is the same true for a potato hued with blue? Absolutely. While blueberries, particularly wild blueberries, have the high skin-to-pulp ratio and deep color that makes them an antioxidant leader, the antioxidant anthocyanin, responsible for this color, is also behind the skin color of the purple potato. It’s found in other foods, too, like cabbage and eggplant.

While potatoes are challenged with a soiled reputation due to our over-love of the fried variety, potatoes are a vegetable that provides wonderful health benefits. They have moderate fat and calories, are full of vitamins C and B6, and provide a high dose of potassium, an essential nutrient we often get too little of.

Thanks to anthocyanins, the Purple Viking, a white-fleshed potato that Bittman describes as having “a purple skin with pink splashes, as pretty as it sounds” can be depended upon to deliver the anti-cancer, heart-healthy, anti-aging benefits that most deeply colored fruit and veggies do. In fact, they have been recently recognized for their potential to lower blood pressure. Bittman extols the virtues of this earthly purple gem for summer because, he says, they are a delightful food for the grill, and they shine in soups. They also cook and sauté quickly, maintain a perfectly crisp outside, and are full of flavor.

Purple potatoes are often available from local farmers and can be found in local grocery stores, but if you want to plant your very own and you live in Maine, you can obtain your seeds from the Maine Potato Lady in Guilford. Place your seed orders now to ship the last week of April, and you can be fixing up a blue-hued plate in a matter of months that your guests will really dig.

Color Your World! Try These Purple Potato Recipes

Round Turned Upside Down! Wild Blueberry Pancakes Take a Savory Turn

pancakes by breahn, on Flickr
Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic License  by  breahn 

For some, food fun days like National Blueberry Pancake Day herald the wonderful ways to enjoy a breakfast favorite swathed in their favorite companion, the mouth-watering wild blueberry. But for others, such a celebration brings the breakfast blues. A day that celebrates a food with the word “cake” in it is one of restraint for many of us, not celebration.

Enter this month’s most heartening foodie find: Fabio Viviani’s Perfect Savory Pancakes – a true upset for the blueberry pancake traditionalist, and for those who have pledged to forgo the treat due to its carb and sugar excesses, a deliciously welcome one.

In this flapjack flip-flop, ricotta cheese lends the richness, and a sprinkle of smoked paprika provides an unexpected lift for such an early hour. Forget the syrup, says Viviani of this savory, not sweet treat: topping these pancakes with syrup would be nothing short of “a disaster!” He uses olive oil instead in a nod to the savory switcheroo, and an astonishing dusting of Parmesan cheese adds the final touch. What could be more out of the blue?

Viviani says the key to fluffy pancakes is to let the batter get thick but not too thick. He blends the blueberries into the batter early, in a complete hotcake turn-around from our favored blueberry pancake method, though he adheres to proper pancake protocol when applying the ricotta. The blueberries carry the sweet load in this dish, providing the perfect foil against the dominant savory taste.

Said one Wild About Health reader who gave it an enthusiastic thumbs up, “It’s really more like an omelet than a pancake.” He put frozen wild blueberries in with the ricotta to intensify the fruit flavor (perfectly acceptable!) and sprinkled it with feta instead of Parmesan.

What’s even better about this breakfast indulgence is that it cuts the flour of a traditional pancake in half. How? Credit the natural fiber called pectin, one of the wild blueberry’s myriad nutritional advantages.

Pectin – A Hidden Benefit of the Wild Blueberry

Pectin is a naturally occurring substance found in berries and other fruits like apples that can cause thickening when heated.  (It’s what creates the consistency of jams and jellies.) The high fiber content in wild blueberries comes in the form of this natural thickening agent. One of the reasons this powerfully nutritious berry is also known to help stomach problems and improve digestive disturbances like IBS may be, in part, due to the pectin fiber content – half a cup of blues has as much fiber as a slice of whole wheat bread!

Thanks to the blueberry’s pectin, says Viviani, cutting the flour content is easy in these griddle luminaries.  In addition to the wonderful gastrointestinal benefits, this unique take on the cake provides a great alternative if you are cutting carbs as well. What a delightful way to face the day!

Pour it and Ignore it! 

Watch Fabio Viviani’s griddle method as he walks through his Perfect Savory Pancakes. View the Chow Ciao video featuring Fabio.

Oatmeal Homage: Bowl or Bar, It’s Healthy, Hearty Winter Fare

More oatmeal is eaten in January than in any other time of the year. As this month comes to a close, it’s the perfect time to squeeze in a little healthy celebration of National Oatmeal Month. That’s right: January is officially the month when this heart healthy food gets its due. Warm, healthy, filling and the perfect foil for an array of favorite tastes, this versatile food is as good in a bowl as it is a in a bar.

Oatmeal is the broad term for ground, steel-cut, crushed or rolled oats, and it is known for its many health advantages, including being a source for omega-3s, manganese and soluble fiber. It plays a serious role in lowering cholesterol, and reducing blood pressure, especially as an alternative to less healthy breakfast bowls. Other benefits, of course, include that stick-to-your-ribs feeling that helps you feel full until lunch, and it provides a necessary warmth on a cold winter morning.

But as National Oatmeal Month helps illustrate, oatmeal is not just for breakfast. This popular food is also a windfall for cookies, bars, and breads, adding nutrition and texture to all it comes in contact with. It gives new meaning to “oatmeal bar” by enhancing beer, it thickens soups and chili, and it even has less edible uses, including facial scrubs and shampoo.

You’re the Top

For all its uses, oatmeal’s Oscar-worthy role might be as the perfect foundation for a daily serving of fruit. It shines when combined with healthy berries – wild blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, apples and bananas all work well, but favorite toppings are a matter of personal taste. Some favorites include raisins, nuts of all varieties (try walnuts for additional serving of good fat), butter, brown sugar, milk, syrup, currants, cinnamon, cranberries, pumpkin puree, shredded coconut, citrus zest, and fresh ginger. Some oatmeal lovers have even been known to splurge with M&M’s, cream, and bacon!

A “Smothering” Boon

Top health professionals agree about the mysterious benefit of combining foods. It’s called synergy – it’s nature’s way of increasing our health benefits naturally. Food synergy occurs when components within the same food, or components between different foods, work together in a way that is more powerful than their effects would be separately. Evidence suggests that the components in the foods we consume interact with each other to give our bodies extra disease protection and a higher level of health.  It may be why can’t yet seem to achieve similar health benefits from supplements – they are missing out on food combinations that provide healthy synergy.

Oatmeal provides the basis for perfect synergistic meal. According to Superfood doc Steven Pratt, there is synergy between wild blueberries and almost every other food, making smothering a bowl of oatmeal with beneficial berries a nutritionally smart move. Find more synergistic combinations for health and taste, such as berries and walnuts, an ideal oatmeal topping.

The Perfect Bowl

While instant oatmeal can be a preferred method for some, once you start making oatmeal from “scratch”, you’ll wonder why you ever to opted for instant. Simply use equal parts oats and liquid (milk or water) in a pot and stir for about five minutes until the desired consistency is achieved. For one portion, start with 2/3 cup of oatmeal and 3/4 cup of whole milk, then decide what texture you like best. Opinions on making the perfect bowl do differ – here’s Ehow.com’s recipe for perfect bowl. Or, try this Quintessential Blueberry Oatmeal from NYTimes.com. (That purple hue means nutrition!)

Oatmeal Recipes to Try This Month (and Next!)