Here a berry, there a carrot, everywhere a bluecarrot

Yum! How about carrot cake muffins with blueberry filling?

What a wonderful burden to have.

Carrot soup with tangy blueberry scones or blueberry muffins on the side.

Yeah, yeah, living in Oregon is such a curse. When you walk outside food falls on your head. Woe is us.

I've been thinking cakey things just because I like to bake so spicy carrot cake with blueberry filling sounds delicious.

And so does carrot soup served with blueberry scones.

It is a bit hot for soup.... is there such a thing as cold carrot soup? Is it any good? How would one present this as a gift (whether hot or cold?)

What about some kind of compote or marmaladey type thing? Or some kind of tart? I think the two flavors would mix well together but I'm just not sure how.

Lotsa good cold carrot soups.

Present it in an inexpensive thermos (aren't they all inexpensive now?), with a dollar store tin full of tangy blueberry muffins or tea bread wrapped in a dollar store tea towel - and the recipes printed out ...

Cold Carrot Soup recipe

Cold Carrot Soup with Indian Spices recipe (I like the look of this one)

Lactose-free Blueberry Muffins (with lime juice)

Wild Blueberry Tea Bread (love love love tea breads)

Blueberry Lemon Tea Bread

Howsabout a classic carrot slaw with blueberry teacake. All they'd need is something to grill to have most of a picnic.

Blueberries are so good for you, I am afraid I would be a bloody bore, and freeze them to eat when there are none around.

Carrot slaw and blueberry teacake is looking like a winner!

I love blueberries and I usually do have a bag in the freezer. It is so nice to have such fresh ones though that I can't quite bring myself to freeze them.

Thanks all!

I pick so many berries in the early spring that I would have to freeze some of them, or they would rot. I love to nibble them frozen. To me, it's like a confection.

How about blueberry sorbet for dessert?

You may already do this, boomer, but if you freeze them flat on a tray, and then bag them, you'll have lovely perfect individual blueberries to pop into teabreads/muffins etc later on. I'd rather have frozen blueberries than any kind of jam/compote/jelly sorta thing. They can totally make a blah winter day pep up.

I'm also a fan of blueberries hidden in lemonade ice cubes - dropped into lemonade or ice tea. mmmmmmmm tangy tangy tangy

I recently saw a recipe for blueberry buckle that looked really good. I'll be back when I track it down.

Here it is. (I knew there was a reason I hung onto all of those Cook's Illustrateds.)

This makes a stiff batter.

Streusel
1/2 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
2 Tbls granulated sugar
1/4 tsp cinnamon
pinch o'salt
4 Tbls unsalted butter, cut into smallish pieces

Cake
1 1/3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
10 Tbls unsalted butter, softened but still cool
2/3 cu granulated sugar
1/2 tsp lemon zest, grated
1 1/2 tsp vanilla exract
2 large eggs, room temperature
4 cups fresh blueberries

For the struesel: Combine flour, sugars, cinamon & salt in a mixer on low speed until the large brown sugar lumps are gone. Add butter and mix on low until the mixture resembles wet sand. Set aside.

For cake: Preheat oven to 350 F and spray a 9" x 2" deep cake pan with cooking spray. Line the bottom of the pan with parchment or wax paper and dust with flour.

Combine the flour and baking powder and whisk together. Cream the butter, sugar, salt and lemon zest until light and fluffy. Beat in vanilla. Add eggs one at a time. Scrape down bowl. Turn mixer to low speed and gradually add the dry ingredients. Remove from mixer before all of the flour is combined. Stir in the remaining flour by hand. Gently fold in the blueberries.

Spread the batter evenly into the cake pan. Sprinkle the streusel over the top. Bake for 55 minutes or until the cake tests done with a toothpick. Cool fro 15 minutes before removing from the pan. Serve at room temperature or just warm with ice cream or whipped cream.