Berries, berries and more berries

How I enjoy this time of the year. I love to start the day picking berries for the morning yogurt — today I picked raspberries.

At the island we had blueberries — they were small due to the dry spring and just beginning to get ripe. Usually we don't get any blueberries until the last half of July but the last years we've been able to pick them already in the beginning of the month. I'm talking about wild blueberries, Vaccinium myrtillus, which cover about 17% of Sweden. I know there are other names for them depending on where you live.

The white currants are already ripe — but very small this year. The black and red will probably be ready to pick next week. We like to eat as much fresh berries as we can but it usually is enough to fill the freezers too. I like to freeze some berries as they are but I also stir some of them with a small amount of sugar — a recipe from my Danish friend. As I usually use very little sugar I store all my jams and jellies in the freezer. Here is a recipe with more sugar — but probably not enough to keep forever without freezing (I haven't tried).

1 kg (=2 l) blueberries
0,8 l sugar
Let the berries and sugar boil slowly to reduce as

much as possible of the liquid.

Add the zest and juice of 1 lemon.

This is not a meadow — it is what my strawberry patch looked like when I came back from the island! I spent some hours there the other day and filled a wheelbarrow with weed and I think there still is almost as much left. So there is where you'll find me if you look for me today.

And when the weeding is done we can have strawberries with ice cream.