Tuesday, July 04, 2006

Blueberry Stuff

The blueberries are in at the orchard/fruit stand around the corner (the corner is a mile away, and the fruit stand is few miles beyond that, but it's technically around the corner), so I thought I'd post the recipe for what my Aint Flora Belle (and everyone else) calls Blueberry Stuff, a light no-bake cheesecake with a blueberry topping.

Blueberry Stuff
1 graham cracker crust (you can make your own, I guess, if you have nothing better to do and don't care for the handy little cover that comes with supermarket graham cracker crusts)
1 package cream cheese
1 tub of whipped topping
1/2 cup powdered sugar
2 cups blueberries
1/2 cup sugar (or more if the blueberries aren't very sweet)
2 tbsp cornstarch
1/2 cup water

For the filling:
Beat together cream cheese and powdered sugar until smooth, fold in whipped topping.

For the topping:
In a saucepan over medium low heat, mix blueberries, sugar, cornstarch, and water. (Start everything cold so you don't end up with lumps of cornstarch). Let everything dissolve, then come to a boil (you might increase the heat to medium once it gets warm if your stove won't bring stuff to a boil over lower heat, but you certainly don't want to scorch anything). Let cool a little bit--not too much as this stuff can set up to be pretty solid.

For the assembling:
Put filling in pie crust. Put topping on filling. Chill.

The effete food snobs in the audience (does anyone actually read this?) might turn up your nose at the prepared graham cracker crust and whipped topping in this recipe, and wonder why I don't just use canned blueberry pie filling. Well you can do that, too, if blueberries aren't in season and you didn't save any in the freezer.