Ah blackberries….. I have a love hate relationship with the fruit. Sounds weird, right? I love, love, love eating blackberries and blackberry desserts. However, I absolutely HATE picking them. My childhood was spent visiting grandparents who lived on the Oregon coast. My family eventually relocated from rural Idaho to the Oregon coast and I went to junior high and high school there. When we moved to Oregon my parents bought my grandparents house which is in the country with about 10 acres of land. Blackberries grow like weeds in this area. They just take over other plants and grasses. It is a never ending job keeping them back from the road, orchard, horse pasture, etc. My mom would try and get my sister and I to pick blackberries down along our fields, however, we were terrible at it. She would get quite frustrated with us, rightly so. There were usually spiders and bees and the bushes are very pokey. We had no trouble eating the delicious pies that she would make around the holidays though.
Last week, our local grocery store had blackberries on sale. I jumped at the chance to buy these and quickly scourged Pinterest for ideas. While I love baking, I did not get my mother’s pie making ability. I found the perfect recipe, Blackberry Pie Bars from The Novice Chef. Oh my, these were delicious and super easy to make. Sorry for the not so great pictures. I just got a new lens that I was playing with and my food photography skills are lacking. Check out the link for great pictures. Also, really load the bar up with fruit. I didn’t have quite enough to evenly spread out the blackberries. This also would be good with all kinds of fruit. The original recipe called for it to be mixed in a food processor but I found the volume was too much for mine so I mixed by hand with a pastry mixer. This was a big, big hit in our house.
