We often toss blueberries and Greek yogurt (instead of milk) onto a bowl of cereal, but lately we’ve been getting fancier with a blueberry granola parfait. You can have it for breakfast, lunch, a snack or dessert.

In this recipe, the orange yogurt is a refreshing change. If you can’t find orange yogurt, you can use lemon yogurt and lemon zest, or mix chopped orange segments into plain or vanilla yogurt.

BLUEBERRY YOGURT PARFAIT RECIPE

Ingredients For 4 Servings

1. DIVIDE and layer ingredients into four sundae glasses, large-bowl wine glasses or other interesting dish or glass. Start with granola, then blueberries, then yogurt. If you’re using chopped oranges as a layer, add them between the granola and the blueberries.

2. REPEAT layers. Garnish with orange zest.

Find more fruit recipes at ChileanFruitOnline.com.
BLUEBERRY HANDLING & STORAGE TIPS

[2] Summer is peak blueberry season. Enjoy as many as you can (photo © Vino Li | Unsplash).

July 11th is National Blueberry Muffin Day. If you’ve never made blueberry muffins from scratch, today’s the day. (If not, July is National Blueberry Month and July 8th is National Blueberry Day, and July 10th is National Pick Blueberries Day.)

Use seasonal fresh blueberries. Most commercial blueberry muffins use frozen blueberries, which can get watery. There’s nothing like the real deal.

The creator of this recipe is unknown, but it appeared in early versions of the Fanny Farmer Cookbook.

The recipe is not in recent editions of the cookbook, but you can purchase a reprint of the Fannie Farmer 1896 Cook Book.

The name evokes Twin Mountains in Franconia, New Hampshire, a pair of mountain peaks called North Twin and South Twin.

> The history of blueberries.

> More blueberry recipes.

> Check out the difference between muffins and cake below.
 
 
RECIPE: TWIN MOUNTAINS BLUEBERRY MUFFINS

Ingredients

 
Preparation

1. PREHEAT oven to 400°F. COMBINE 1-1/2 cups flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar in a mixing bowl. In a second bowl combine eggs, milk, and butter. In a third bowl, sprinkle 1/2 cup flour over the blueberries.

2. POUR the egg mixture over the flour mixture. Stir only enough to dampen the flour; the batter should not be smooth. Gently stir in blueberries.

3. SPOON into buttered muffin tins. The batter should fill each muffin cup two-thirds high. Bake for 15 minutes.

Muffins are often referred to as “small cake-like breads” and quick breads, but this explanation needs to be rethought.

As recipes have evolved over time, the sugar and butter content of many muffins put them into the cake category—more precisely, the cupcake category. Many of them can pass as uniced cupcakes.

That’s why you can serve them for dessert. Cut the muffin in half, toast it lightly if you wish, and top it with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, whipped cream, or mascarpone.
 
 
See all of the July food holidays.
 
_______________

*You can substitute 1-7/8 cups of all-purpose flour, but pastry flour creates more tender muffins.
 
 

Serve a fresh fruit tartlet with a matching sorbet. Here are the easy steps: Choose a pairing theme (mango, raspberry, strawberry or other fruit where you can buy or make a matching sorbet) and assemble the ingredients.

You can start by looking for inspiration at artisan sorbets±blueberry tarragon, strawberry basil, etc. But there‘s nothing wrong with a simple, everyday sorbet.

FRUIT TARTLET WITH SORBET

Ingredients

 
Preparation

1. CUT the fruit into pieces that fit comfortably into the tartlet shell

2, ADD a light base of crème pâtissière or alternative (if using current jelly, pour it over the fruit). Top with fruit.

3. SCOOP sorbet onto plate; add tartlet; garnish and serve.
FOOD 101: TART VS. TARTLET

A tart is an open-face pastry with a base of plain or puff pastry dough. It is baked in a shallow tart pan that has either straight or fluted sides and a removable bottom, or in a metal tart ring placed on a baking sheet. The filling can be sweet or savory.

“Tart” refers to the full-size, multi-portion pastry, a cousin to the pie. Individual-size tarts are called tartlets; a mini tart (bite size) is also a tartlet.

Unlike a pie, a tart is removed from the tart pan or ring before serving. Here are all the differences between tarts and pies.
  

While we’re great fans of the original Mojito recipe, here‘s a variation from Cruzan rum, a distiller that makes both conventional and flavored rums on the Caribbean island of St. Croix:
 
COCONUT MOJITO RECIPE

Ingredients Per Drink

1. Muddle mint, lime and sugar in a cocktail shaker; top with rums and ice. Shake 2 times to mix.

2. POUR into glass. Top with coconut water/soda.

Variations

You can add cranberry juice to make a Cranberry Mojito, or muddle raspberries for a Raspberry Mojito.

For more intense coconut flavor, check out the Coquito Mojito, a recent winner in a Florida cocktail competition.

And if you love beets, try this Beet Mojito.

 
MOJITO HISTORY

The mojito (moe-HEE-toe) is a quintessential Cuban cocktail. The name derives from the African voodoo term mojo, to cast a small spell.

The drink can be traced to 1586, when Sir Francis Drake and his pirates unsuccessfully attempted to sack Havana for its gold. His associate,* Richard Drake (a possible distant relative), was said to have invented a mojito-like cocktail known as El Draque, “The Drake.” It was made with aguardiente, a crude forerunner of rum, sugar, lime and mint.

Around the mid-1800s, rum was substituted and the cocktail became known as a Mojito.
 
FIND MORE OF OUR FAVORITE COCKTAIL RECIPES.
*His position was “factor and prize agent.”