In the past 25 years, large, firm, deep-blue blueberries have transformed from a local specialty to a mass cultivated fruit that has captured the hearts and palates of food lovers all over America. They are excellent cooked in cakes and pies, as well as stewed. Blueberries are fresh in summer, but also available frozen all winter, and these retain the delicious qualities of the fresh variety. For oven-baked recipes you can toss still-frozen berries into the batter, but in crock-baked cakes, the berries must be thawed first.
Excerpted from Not Your Mother’s Slow Cooker Recipes for Entertaining, by Beth Hensperger and Julie Kaufmann. © 2007, used by permission from The Harvard Common Press.