Here We Go Round The Mulberry Bush

The day before THE INCIDENT our neighbor called and said that his mulberry tree was in bloom and we were welcome to come and pick some. They were leaving town and he was going to leave us a ladder out if we wanted to bring the kids over to pick some mulberries.

I've always envied my other blogger friends who can experience those "pick your own (fill in the blank) farms" because we don't have any near us. Well, except pumpkins and pumpkins don't necessarily make my skirt fly up. However, mulberries sounded interesting. Other than the song, I know absolutely nothing about them. And our mulberries were on a tree, so it made me question the validity of my only pre-existing knowledge.

We all donned our mulberry picking clothes and grabbed the only non-plastic bucket I had that wasn't being used in my decorating (I was worried the mulberries would stain). Here's what we found when we got there.

I wasn't sure which ones were ripe or if they all were or what so Eli did a taste test for us. The dark ones are ripe and the red ones are (apparently) very tart!

So then we all got to pickin'.




This picture is to prove that I did more than just take pictures!


After we had all turned our hands blue (so meant to take a picture of that!), we headed home so I could figure out what to do with these little babies. I decided to stew them and then make a crostata, based on one by GIADA (although my recipe called for some fresh lemon juice and apricot preserves). Since I didn't know how to stew mulberries, I just stewed them like I stew dried apricots (but without soaking them overnight first) by simmering them in water with a little sugar until they are all broken down and mushy. I'm very technical, you know.

Here's how it turned out.


The mulberries were only marginal, but that might have been because I didn't use enough and they seemed to make a little mulberry "crust" over the crostata. Or maybe I just stewed them wrong. Who knows. It was yummy enough...especially for breakfast the next morning with my coffee.

So maybe sometime soon we'll go back around the mulberry bush and I'll branch out with some mulberry muffins or mulberry compote. Makes me hungry just thinking about it!