It is recommended you eat more fresh fruit and veggies as part of a defense against the virus. That is all well and good, but what is fresh about a stay-at-home scenario?
In these times, going to the grocery store has been reduced to a once in a month activity. This requires suiting up before you go, sanitizing along the way, and disinfecting upon return.
The few remaining apples we got on the last supply run are starting to show their age. Grocery re-stock is a week off. So, I core, peel and slice the apples, cover with some sugar and cinnamon do a light saute and serve them with a biscuit.
These aren’t just any biscuits. These morsels came as part of a cobbler recipe. We’ve found that you don’t need berry cobbler to enjoy a really tasty treat. It’s kind of healthy … and they are delicious slathered with butter and jam.
Blueberry Cobbler
Ingredients
filling
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1 Tbsp corn starch
- pinch cinnamon
- pinch salt
- 6 cups berries
- 1 1/2 tsp lemon zest
- 1 Tbsp lemon juice
Biscuit topping
- 1 cup unbleached AP flour
- 2 Tbsp stone-ground cornmeal
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp baking soda
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 4 Tbsp unsalted butter melted
- 1/3 cup buttermilk
- 1/2 tsp vanilla
- 1/8 tsp cinnamon
- 2 tsp sugar
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375º and adjust rack to lower-middle.
Filling
- Stir the sugar, cornstarch, cinnamon, and salt together in a large bowl. Add the berries and mix gently with a rubber spatual until evenly coated; add the lemon zest and juice and mix to combine. Transfer the berry mixture to a 9- inch glass pie plate (8-inch square works too). Place on a rimmed baking sheet, and bake until the filling is hot and bubbling around the edges, about 25 minutes.
Biscuit
- Whisk the flour, cornmeal, ¼ cup of sugar, baking powder, soda and salt in a large bowl to combine. Whisk the melted butter, buttermilk, and vanilla together in a small bowl. Mix the remaining 2 tsps sugar and cinnamon in a second small bowl and set aside. One minute before the berries come out of the oven, add the wet to dry ingredients; stir with a rubber spatula until just combined and no dry pockets remain.
Assemble and Bake
- Remove the berries from the oven. Increase the temp. to 425º. Pinch off 8 equal pieces of biscuit dough and place them on top of the hot berry filling, spacing them at least ½ inches apart. Sprinkle each mound of dough with cinnamon sugar. Bake until the filling is bubbling and the biscuits are golden brown on top and cooked through, 15 to 18 minutes. Cool the cobbler on a wire rack for 20 minutes and serve.
Surprisingly, there are few people at the Sunriver Nature Center during the week, so it has become a great morning destination when the neighborhood walk starts to get a bit stale.
Today we start our third week of quarantine with a bit of social distancing at the hardware store … masks on.
I’ve managed to get a couple dozen spring patterns tied, euro-nymph and dry fly. Now to start on the summer collection of caddis, stoneflies, and terrestrials.
I love our quiet moments at home, but really miss our adventures on the road. I knew we would go stir crazy without some way to get out and move. Our gym is off limits, so walking the neighborhood is our best bet. 
Luckily, we have lovely trails through forest and high desert just outside our home. 
For better than a decade we’ve kept an emergency supply pantry, as well as a stocked freezer, extra fuel, water and paper product. Prepped? Maybe. But for us it was the memory of how fast the Mount St Helen’s eruption made a mess of life in the PNW and the threat of Mt Hood’s regular awakenings. This global pandemic thing wasn’t even on my radar.
Thank goodness for Tip’s exuberance. 
If social distancing means avoiding people (and for the most part it does) we’ve been doing that for years.
We live in a neighborhood where folks lift a hand in greeting and pause to visit. I love how friendly everyone is. That said, we do have a terrible time remembering names … we usually recognize people by their dogs. “Oh, there’s the guy with the old dog that sits on the bench.” We always stop to visit, but now we do it from across the field. 
We are ready for months of isolation, quarantine and social distancing.
If you don’t like peanut butter … well that’s just wrong … but also you won’t like this post much either.