I came across this article in the LA Times recently, and I immediately posted it to Brad’s facebook wall.

We are already all about farm to table produce and cooking, why not take it a step further?  Actually go to the farm and get your own produce from the actual plant it grows on.

Plant to table cooking.  Heck yes.

I was kind of worried that we would be too exhausted on our day off to drive up to a farm in the mountains, wander around a blueberry patch, and pick pounds and pounds of berries.  But lucky for me, I married a man who is just as excited about fresher-than-the-farmer’s-market blueberries as I am.  We woke up yesterday morning to a beautiful Santa Monica day and – after a quick coffee pit stop for Brad – got directly on the road.

I never thought I’d say this, but why go to the beach when you can pick blueberries?

About an hour drive later, we pulled up to Underwood Farms’ Somis location and were greeted by their goats…

Theses goats have had structures built for them so they can climb like they are on a mountain.  It is awesome.

But we bypassed the animals for the time being, grabbed a few containers, and headed out into the patches.

Where we promptly lost each other in the rows and rows of blueberry bushes and started sending Tweets with our locations to each other.

@AButchersSon I’m over here! twitter.com/TheKeyofKels/s…

— Kelly Mathews (@TheKeyofKels) May 14, 2012

@TheKeyofKels Where??? I’m over here!! The blue berries are soo good!! twitter.com/AButchersSon/s…

— Brad Mathews (@AButchersSon) May 14, 2012

When we finally found each other again, we found a few bushes that we could actually fit underneath.  We found that there were the most berries on the underside of the bushes.  And – bonus! – it was a whole lot cooler in the shade.

I took about a billion berry pictures.

We ate a few as we picked….

But we ended up with six pounds of blueberries.  Four pounds for the house and two for Bar Pintxo.

And, you’re not going to believe this… All those berries only cost us $27.73.  $3.99 a pound.

Get. Outta. Here.

We also bought a bag of carrots at the little shop they have there, because Brad was really excited to feed the goats….

And the sheep…

And even the Alpaca. (?!?)

Seriously.  Why an Alpaca?

I, personally, cannot wait to use every last blueberry we pulled off the bush.  Last night I spent quite a while on Pinterest and my favorite blogs researching blueberry recipes while Brad was whipping up a MOST delicious feast (pictures to come).  I’ve already made myself a Blueberry-Banana Smoothie this morning, but there are so many other delicious and wonderful things to make and bake with blueberries!!

So far I have come up with this list of Blueberry recipes to attempt:

Lemon Blueberry Pull-Apart Bread

Blueberry Scones

A Blueberry Tart

Blueberry Cheesecake Icecream?

While I’m at it, maybe I’ll just make a Blueberry Cheesecake.

And, of course, Blueberry Muffins

But seriously, look at all these Blueberry Recipes.

Do you have a great blueberry recipe I should definitely try??

Four pounds may not be enough.  We may be going back to Underwood very, very soon…

xoxo