I try to order most of the add-ons from Boston Organics at least once that they offer them, in order to encourage them to keep branching out with the treats. So this year we decided to go for the “box of blueberries,” a 5-pound box - from Burke Hill Farm.

We decided to go with a three-pronged approach to this box: freeze ‘em, can ‘em, pie ‘em. Five pounds worked out to about 3.5 quarts, so our plan was 1 quart frozen, 1.5 quarts canned and the rest in a pie. To freeze, we put them in vacuum-seal bags, 2 cups per.

We then laid them flat in the freezer for a day or two, then sealed them. We’ve found that anything with that kind of liquid content (corn, etc.) should be frozen first, or else the sealer tries to suck all the liquid out, and crush the fruit. On to the canning. We went for a blueberry jam, on the firm side - closer to jelly probably, but with big chunks - I am calling it “jammy”. 6 cups berries, 4 cups sugar, cook til done. As we wanted it more firm than a jam, we added 2/3 package liquid pectin at the end.

Get your jars good and hot, fill quickly, and get them back in the hot bath for 15 minutes.

And presto, sweet blueberry goodness, just waiting for some toast to walk by.

The final quart was destined for pie, to cap off our blueberryful day. You know how it goes. We ended up with extra crust material, so we covered the top - turned it to more of a crumble, but it was tasty anyway. I don’t know if we were just tired, but I burned the BBQ chicken, and Em burned the pie (so no cooked pie photos please). The chicken was OK at best, with the sauce, but the pie was perfect.

Now we’re just waiting to see if we can get another box and do it again. All the rain this week has postponed harvesting/delivery...

In honour of the Loving Local: Celebrating the Flavors of Massachusetts Blog-a-thon, maybe consider donating to the Mass Farmer's Market. Because they do deserve it, really.