This weekend the Anthem crew headed outdoors for some do it yourself fruit picking.  Throughout the year, many farms throughout the US will open their doors to visitors, letting them pick fruit for exceedingly low prices.  They’re often referred to as “pick your own” or “u-pick” farms. It’s a great way for smaller growers to make some extra income, and it’s the best way to get incredibly fresh fruit for a fraction of market price.  Everybody wins!

We decided to head out to Briar Patch Farm, located in Dacula Georgia (that’s “Da-Cue-La”, not “Dracula” minus the “r”) since they were one of the only farms in the area that still had some blueberries.  July is the peak blueberry season, and has even been declared National Blueberry Month by the USDA (not to be confused with Boo Berry Season, which peaks on the 31^st of October).

Lines of Blueberry trees at Briar Patch farm.

When looking for a good place to pick fruit, it’s best to call ahead for availability. Popular farms tend to get cleaned out very quickly since the early bird gets the worm. If possible, you should head out early in the season, and early in the day.  The folks are Briar Patch Farm were very gracious and easy going, and it was a very pleasant low key experience.  Basically, you show up, they give you a bucket, and you’re on your way.  They had warned us ahead of time that most of the berries had already been picked, though there were still some ripe ones to be had if we rummaged carefully.

Buckets o' Fun!

Sure enough, when we got there most of the berries left on the trees were unripe.  It felt like slim pickings at first, but we quickly got the hang of it.  I found it was best (as with many things in life) to approach the trees from unusual angles, and often times I’d see plenty of berries that had flown under the radar of less discerning eyes.  Once you spot one, tons of them suddenly come out of the woodwork (I felt like I was seeing the Matrix).

When picking blueberries, it’s important that you only pick the ripe ones which are a deep blue or purple color.   Picking unripened berries severely cuts down on the year’s available harvest.  A lot of farms have closed down early this year for this reason.

ripe for the pickin'

Blueberries have some of the highest brand equity among fruit.  Mention blueberries to anyone health conscious and they’ll be sure to respond “that’s one of the healthiest things you can eat!”  This is because they’re absolutely jam packed with antioxidants, and they taste great to boot.

The blueberries at Briar Patch were genuinely organic with no pesticides since they’re already very naturally pest resistant (there wasn’t a single bug bite on any blueberry in the orchard).  Blueberries have a high concentration of flavonoids, an antioxidant compound that repels insects and microbes and also gives them their deep blue color.  Recent studies have shown that the ingestion of flavonoids found in blueberries may also lower cholesterol, fight cancer, improve memory and help to prevent Alzheimer’s.

By the end of the day, we had collected a full gallon of blueberries, which only came out to $7! If you go by the average supermarket price of $3/4oz, then a gallon of blueberries would cost $96!  That’s THIRTEEN times more than what we paid (And they wouldn’t be nearly as fresh either)!!

A gallon of delicious and nutritious

When we got back home we made a pretty rockin’ Cobbler with just a small fraction of the berries.  It was one of the freshest tasting pastries I’ve ever met.

we gobbled that cobbler

The U-pick experience was a ton of fun and we recommend it to anyone.  It’s a fun, memorable experience that yields delicious souvenirs for weeks to come!

You can find a participating farm near you at the following website:

http://www.pickyourown.org/

Happy picking!

Hello gentle travelers, today is the debut of Anthem Recipes! That’s right, when we’re not innovating the web-space, or the games-space, we are innovating the taste-space located just below your nose.

For our inaugural entry, we are pleased to unveil the Napoleon Bacon Hound.

The Napoleon Bacon Hound was born out of the question “how can we improve on the hotdog?” Our solution? Wrap it in bacon (this is a good solution for a lot of food related inquiries) and then wrap it again in a croissant (well, it’s actually a flakey dinner roll). The result is a time stoppingly tasty treat that’s quick and easy to make.

Here’s some simple instructions.

Ingredients:
Hotdog/sausage of choice, preferably hand sized.
Bacon (we recommend maple bacon)
Flaky Dinner roll tube.

just 3 simple ingredients

Hardware:
Convection oven
Oven safe tray, or aluminum wrap
Optional: stove and pan

Step 1 – Preheat your oven to 400 degrees, or whatever is recommended for preparation of your dinner rolls.

Step 2 – wrap each sausage with 1 strip of bacon. Try to wrap it as evenly as possible.

Step 3 (optional) – If you want your bacon to be crispy, be sure to cook it first. Heat up a pan or skillet and cook the sausage with the bacon wrapped around it until it is browned and crispy. Remove from stove and let it sit, so the bacon hardens around the sausage.

Step 4 – Unwrap your dinner rolls. Wrap them around your bacon/sausage combo. Your dinner wrap will typically be in a triangle shape. For the most even roll, start with the thin end of the triangle and wrap it around the meat, angling it so you’re going over, up and back down rather than just straight across.

Step 5 – Place your wrapped Napoleon Bacon Hounds on an oven safe tray and put em in the oven for 10 minutes.

Step 6 – Remove from Oven and ENJOY.

warning: contents are extremely HAWT

These things are super tasty, but they’re also REALLY heavy. I don’t recommend you make them a daily habit. Still, it’s a fun and easy recipe where every element works well together. The dinner rolls are usually cheaper than hot dog buns, and I think they taste way better. Also, the bacon adds a true meat flavor to the hotdogs, making them feel much more substantial.

I personally prefer to let the bacon cook in the oven rather than pre-cooking it, because the bacon stays soft and tender like pork belly ought to (fat tastes good!) and the bun absorbs more of the run off flavor (animal fat tastes good!).

I hope our good audience enjoys this recipe. If you happen to try it out, let us know what you think, or if you have any improvements on it (for instance, phyllo dough might work even better than the dinner rolls).

Cheers!