How to Use Up a Small Batch of Red Raspberries or Other Fruit
We’re still enjoying small pickings of red raspberries as we move into early October.
I messed up this spring (technically late winter), pruning back our one and only red raspberry bush, which we planted several years ago when my youngest daughter was living at home. I cut back ALL the canes instead of just the older, seasoned canes. Why I didn’t Google how to prune first, and cut later, I don’t know. She took care of the pruning earlier, so I was winging it.
However, I’m having a fine late summer/early fall crop of fresh berries every other day. 
Not really enough to do anything with except eat fresh on cereal or in fruit salad (fancied up above for company), or freeze them in small batches. Or this:
A mini-cobbler.
This was so easy it was sinful, because I had leftover crumb topping from making a quick pie out of Granny Smith apples recently. I had too much topping for the smallish pie but rather than toss out the leftover crumbs, I bagged and refrigerated them thinking I might use it sometime soon, but not sure how.
Eureka. Daughter (the red raspberry lover) was home a couple days before we took off for our grandson’s birthday weekend, so for dessert one evening, I threw together this quick mini-cobbler. Perfect end to a fall meal for two or three people.
End of story. Here’s the mini-recipe.
Mini-cobbler with raspberries, peaches, blueberries, apples
Wash and prepare 1 cup of fresh fruit (chopped up if peaches or apples). Add 1/8 cup sugar (or more to your taste) and stir. Add two drops lemon juice if desired.
Crumbs:
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup butter
1/2 cup flour
Cut butter into brown sugar and flour with pastry blender or two knives. Mix until crumbs resemble coarse meal with lumps the size of peas. Grease baking dish and add fruit. Sprinkle crumbs on top of fruit. Bake at 375 degrees for 30 minutes.
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What is your favorite thing to do with red raspberries, besides just eat them fresh of course.
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For more recipes and family stories check out my book, Whatever Happened to Dinner.
findingharmonyblog 
Your food photos are spectacular. On one of them the plate looks illuminated; I guess it was the angle. My favorite thing for raspberries? As a topping of my bowl of Cheerios. If not raspberries, then blueberries, frozen from the harvest in early June.
I forgot to mention, your post on family dinners inspired me to do one of my own, a fact I acknowledged in today’s post. Thanks for sparking my imagination once again, Melodie.
I think berries on top of cereal is my fav too. Thanks again for the family dinner mention.
Raspberries are my absolute favorite fruit. Our picking is over, only have bags and bags in freezer fortunately. I package them in pint bags and put them in the deep freezer. I keep one bag at a time in the kitchen freezer so can pour out a handful at a time. I like to add to a bowl of cold cereal while they are still frozen…they make the milk slushy. We also add into pots of oatmeal.
We have a favorite jello salad that is so delicious it is like dessert, that uses raspberries. I collected that recipe from a woman at a Homemakers potluck. Another recipe for a raspberry torte with a pretzel crust I collected from our retired Family Living (used to be Home Ec) teacher at a church potluck. I have become my grandmother, always having a small stack of note cards in my purse so I never miss a recipe and can quickly jot down the pertinent notes and person’s name.
I make jam, too, freezer and cooked. What is funny though is every year I buy one jar of smuckers seedless raspberry jam for my thumbprint cookies along with a jar a apricot. When they go on sale I snatch them up. I just bought each for under a dollar as I had $1 coupons and I used them on double coupon day. Made my frugal heart happy.
What you call a cobbler there we call a crisp. A topping of oats, flour , brown sugar, flour, butter, nuts and spices crumbled together. I have also heard it called a crumble by a British friend. Our cobblers use a biscuit topping dropped onto hot bubbling fruit then baked. I made a cherry cobbler this week. I got a nice hint off Martha Stewart to make the crumbled topping in a large batch and divide and freeze so ready in an instant as needed for a crisp.
Oh my, late, almost 11:30 here. I am waiting for the canner to finish..5 minutes more . See you next week.
Nice to hear your raspberry loves! I’ve made both freezer and cooked jam, but we eat very little jam usually only when company comes. It does sound like you are a smart frugal cook and shopper. And you are right, I should have called this crisp. I call it crisp when I put it on apple pie or rhubarb… I was just asleep. But the note about a “crumble” for the Brits is interesting!
When I was first married, I belonged to a young homemakers club kind of thing, I think it was called Home Extension. It was a great way to get to know the neighbors on my road and near my home.
I love your line “I have become my grandmother…” Almost every day, I note (and sometimes rue) that I am becoming my mother. 🙂 Will my daughters do the same? Nice chatting … (wow, you’re still canning!) All done here. But I don’t do applesauce and fallish thing. Still digging potatoes …
Homemakers is part of the County Home Extension service. Kind of like 4H for adults. We have people in our area groups that have been in for over 50 years.
Canning not done here. I still have many tomatoes…we brought in everyone of them, red and green as will do no further ripening on vine. Next big project is canning applesauce. And apple cider but we do that at an uncles house…every one brings their bushels of apples and use his cider press and make a day party of it. I make a lot of jam, probably 10 kinds, plus in winter I make marmalade when the citrus comes out. I have one girl that took a peanut butter and strawberry jam sandwich for lunch every day for her entire school life.
We don’t grow potatoes, don’t know if my daughter will add that to garden or not. When she moved back home (to our old house) she took over all the gardening for me. She might grow some just for fun but this is a potato growing area so can buy 100 pound bags for $8 to $11 or so depending on the type at farmstands.
Yes, it was part of the County Home Extension service here too, thanks for recalling that. I do not know if it still exists around here. Cider making sounds like fun, with a gang. It sounds you have a decent set up–with a daughter close by doing the gardening. Yes, that is cheap for potatoes. I hear people complaining about the high prices here but I don’t pay too much attention to the actual price since I don’t need to buy them. It is nice to support your local growers!