Raspberry Gleaning

 Can I just say that gleaning as a distraction is incredible.  Two weeks ago, I received a call that we were going to be able to glean raspberries.  I strongly encouraged the crew that picking free raspberries was a good idea.  Ok, I may have used the "C" card to get my way, but hey, we're talking raspberries here!  We drove out, found the field and grabbed our boxes.  We went two to a row and got to it.  The pickin is much slower on a glean, but as you can see, we did pretty darn good.   Terin busted out two more batches of raspberry jam, Gavin froze enough for a raspberry sorbet, and I got 3 gallon size bags of frozen berries for everything else.  Not bad. 

I had decided before going to our weekly Saturday glean that I wasn't going to take any "extra" food.  I was too tired to process it and had plenty of other things to be doing right now.  WRONG!  Can you blame me?  There was a full box of perfect canning tomatoes.  I am certainly not going to let those go to the pigs if no one else wants them.    12 beautiful quarts later.... not to mention the salsa, and cucumber n tomato salad.   And these were yummy tomatoes.  Not the usual store bought with no flavor.  The tasted like they were fresh from the garden. 

So while I may have invoked my right to use a CFP to get my team to help pick berries, in the end it was so worth it.  Not sure what a CFP is???  Stick around... I'll tell you later.

 

 

I will leave you with this amazing recipe...

 

FRESH RASPBERRY CAKE

 

1/2 c butter softened

1 egg, room temp

1 c sugar

1c milk, room temp

1 t vanilla

2 c flour1 T baking powder

1 t salt

3-4 c berries

 

Combine all ingredients except for the berries and mix well.  Pour into a 9x13 pan and top with the berries.  They should almost fill the surface.   Bake at 350 for 35 mins.

 

Cool and then glaze with the following

 

1 1/2 c powdered sugar

1 t vanilla

2 T butter

2 T milk

 

This recipe is also delicious with blackberries.  I have tried it with frozen berries and don't like it as well, but you be the judge.  The combination of the homemade white cake and the fresh berries is pretty ridiculous.  Enjoy!!!