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| Photo: Serious Eats |
Sometimes my favorite meals are the easiest. You can open a bottle of merlot wine, buy a wedge of brie and a fresh loaf of grainy bread, and voilà, you have the makings of a delicious feast!
It's almost blueberry season! Make ahead a jar of blueberry jam to top brie cheese on bread or toast.
Blueberry Jam
2 cups fresh blueberries
2 tablespoons chia seeds
1/2 cup of honey or maple syrup
Directions:
Dump the blueberries, chia seeds, and honey or maple syrup
into a saucepan and cook over medium heat for 15 minutes or so. I use a potato masher to smash the blueberries (leaving chunks). Remove from the heat and pour into a jar. It thickens as it cools. Refrigerate until needed.
Dump the blueberries, chia seeds, and honey or maple syrup
into a saucepan and cook over medium heat for 15 minutes or so. I use a potato masher to smash the blueberries (leaving chunks). Remove from the heat and pour into a jar. It thickens as it cools. Refrigerate until needed.
Serve on grainy bread (or multigrain toast) on top of a spread of brie cheese.
🍏🥄🍽🍴🧅🥄🍽🍴🍋🥄🍽🍴🍏🥄🍽🍴🧅🥄🍽🍴🍋🥄 🍽🍴🥄🍽🍴🍏
Another topper for your slices of grainy bread is chilled chicken salad. It's also a chance to use leftovers -- chicken and/or vegetables! If you don't have fresh leftover vegetables, frozen vegetables work too.
Dijon Chicken Salad With Vegetables
Ingredients:
16 oz cooked white chicken breast, diced
Select one: 10 oz frozen, cooked and cooled California Mix vegetables, diced; cooked asparagus, diced; or raw onions, celery, and carrots, diced
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| Photo: Christy Denny |
2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
2 tablespoons lemon juice (Often I use vinegar.)
Salt and pepper to taste (Began with a teaspoon of salt, and go from there.)
Optional: 1 red bell pepper, finely chopped
Variation: Often I use a chopped green apple and 2 - 4 chopped baby carrots in my chicken salad for a satisfying crunch. We enjoy food due to its texture and flavor.
Directions:
Toss all your chosen ingredients into a mixing bowl and mix well. Chill for one hour before serving on your fresh (or toasted) grainy bread.
Add some fresh fruit (grapes, strawberries, orange and peach slices, whatever is in season) and you're consuming all the major food groups - protein, whole grains, fruit and vegetables. Bon Appetite! 🍷
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Your chicken salad looks very delicious Debra, and I have taken note. Likewise the idea of brie with freshly made blueberry jam. Would you believe if we want fresh blueberries, and sometimes I do, it costs about $6 for less than half a cup. They package in a little plastic box. However, we can buy imported blueberry jam at reasonable price. On the plus side, bananas are very cheap all year round :)
ReplyDeleteOh my! In recent years blueberries have gotten cheaper in the US. Years ago they were expensive here also. I think there are more blueberry farmers now and they are being imported from South America cheaper also — this I surmise because they're available all year around now whereas they once were seasonal. The vines produce a lot of berries if you can grow them, which I'd love to do. I'd attempt it if I had a nice sunny backyard. Oh Trish, you'd be defeated by all the beautiful birds that fly in your garden. If you grew blueberries, you'd have to enclose them in a wire net. You could also make other types of fruit jam with inexpensive fruit.
DeleteI always thought I made strawberry or blueberry preserves but in writing this blog, I looked up the difference between preserves and jam. Sources defined preserves as whole fruit and jam as smashed fruit, and I always smash the berries.