Breakfast treats filled with raspberries and topped with fun sprinkles—pure delight

Poor little bush looked rather pathetic as we loaded it into our Walmart cart. It was just a stick protruding from a pasteboard container with a little dirt surrounding it. Would someone really pay good money for such a paltry item? And the good money was half off of its original $5 cost. Nothing wrong with ’em, we were assured. Leaves just got blown off in the March winds. We’d done well with Walmart rescue plants before. We planted this little raspberry vine among some fellow fruit vines in the backyard garden and hoped for the best.

Meanwhile, I couldn’t wait for the rescue job to take hold. Raspberries were on my mind, as was a recent recipe in “Celebrating a Healthy Harvest” for raspberry breakfast muffins. I was drawn to the fact that you sprinkle on top some decorating sugar just as you might if you were decorating sugar cookies. The fresh raspberries (from the grocery produce section) stirred in made these little breakfast treats pure delight. Hubby wanted to consume the whole basketful, but I stored some Sugared Berry Muffins away in a sealed container and put them in the freezer to pop out for Easter-morning breakfast next week.

Time will tell whether our pathetic little stick of a raspberry bush will bud out and catch up with its big brother and sister berry bushes out there. When it does, we’ll be ready for it with a great recipe to show off this delicious red fruit.

Sugared Berry Muffins

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 cup whole wheat flour

1/2 cup sugar (or sugar substitute)

3 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt (or salt substitute)

1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1 egg, lightly beaten (or egg substitute)

1 1/4 cups skim milk

4 tablespoons butter, melted

2 teaspoons vanilla

1 cup fresh raspberries

2 tablespoons decorating sugar (or sugar substitute)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Grease 12 medium muffin cups with cooking spray. Mix flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and nutmeg. Stir in egg, milk, butter, and vanilla just until blended. Gently fold in raspberries. Divide batter among 12 muffin cups. Sprinkle decorating sugar crystals or sugar substitute, such as Splenda, over the top of each muffin. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin emerges clean. Remove muffins from muffin tin and cool on a wire rack. Makes 12 servings.

A luscious, berry-laden dessert that's good for you and that incites dreams of next-year's garden

These days everyone's drawing up his or her "bucket list". Mine is more of a "next-summer list." "Next year in Jerusalem" (the well-known phrase that's recited at the end of a Passover Seder) for me is "next year in the garden".

Hubby and I already are envisioning our next-year's crop--and on that list go some new berry vines we'd like to try to plant. One of those involves "something to replace those grapes", as hubby says with a hint of disgust. (I think this means he's over them.) For the past several years our grapevines have been a disappointment--huge and showy but with fruit that has seeds, is tasteless and over which we have to do constant battle with the birds.

Hubby is of a mind to pull out all the grape vines and replace them with a berry patch--blackberries or raspberries--and give that a try.

Yesterday's dessert, Banana Raspberry Rice Pudding, was full of some delicious raspberries--the kind we hope we're growing this time next year. The recipe from Prevention magazine was billed, in essence, "sometimes things that taste delicious and are beautiful also may be good for you at the same time."

This certainly was. It contained fiber-rich brown rice, potassium-filled bananas, and raspberries to die for. All this had creamy banana pudding (sugar-free, of course) wrapped around it. On top was a lavish blob of sugar-free whipped cream. Truly good to look at and good for you! The raspberries gave the "tart" element in the "tart-sweet" mixture and was such a terrific dessert, one truly forgot that consuming this dish was like eating health.

Although we obtained our raspberries from the produce department of our local grocery store, we can dream dreams of the day when they're as close to us simply walking out our back door.

Banana Raspberry Rice Pudding

1 package instant banana pudding mix

2 cups skim milk

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 cups cooked brown rice

2 medium banana, sliced thinly

2 cups fresh raspberries

sugar-free whipped topping

In a medium bowl combine pudding mix, milk and vanilla. Using a wire whisk mix well. Fold in rice and bananas. Spoon into eight dessert dishes. Chill 2 hours. To serve top with crushed raspberries and two tablespoons full of sugar-free whipped topping. Serves 8 (about 1 cup per serving).

Mixed berries make a wonderful showing in this unusual crustless "pie" recipe

When is a pie crust not a pie crust?

When it's the shell of an apple that cleverly acts as a holder for pie ingredients.

Just days ago I discovered a fun new recipe, the outcome of which was brimming with health and goodness but amazed me at its ability to taste like a pie without the usual flour/water/oil crust.

The secret was finding baking apples such as Granny Smith that are tart and are designed to be baked in the oven rather than merely eaten as snacks.

Our grocery happened to be running a special on its fresh shipment of blackberries, raspberries, and blueberries--the first three ingredients in the Baked Apples with Berries recipe I'd just discovered. (Thanks again to my "Celebrating a Healthy Harvest" booklet, which has recipes categorized by fresh fruits and vegetables. Each fruit or vegetable features two recipes that can be prepared with that particular produce item.)

Besides being sure to use baking rather than snacking apples, another key to this recipe is to core the apple only three-quarters of the way down rather than hollowing out the full depth of the apple. Leaving some uncored portion at the bottom retains the fruit mixture during the baking process and helps the skin serve as the "pie shell" I mentioned. The rest of the instructions appear below.

After baking this concoction for 45 minutes, the apple skin made a wonderful holder for the baked berries and then the yummy fruit and yogurt mixture that's added after baking.

We dined on our Baked Apples with Berries at dinner while they were warm from the oven and saved the remaining two stuffed apples for the next day's lunch. For lunch I ate mine cold, straight from the refrigerator--equally delicious!

Baked Apples with Berries

1 cup fresh blackberries

1 cup fresh raspberries

1 cup blueberries

4 large baking apples (I used Granny Smith), washed

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 cup low-fat vanilla yogurt

2 teaspoons honey

slivered almonds (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Core apples about three-quarters o the way through the apple. Start at the stem. Make the hole more than 1 inch wide. Place apples in baking dish that has been sprayed with cooking spray. Rinse and drain berries. Combine berries and then pack berries firmly into the opening in each apple. Set extra berries aside. Bake apples until they are soft, about 45 minutes. Divide remaining berries in half. Crush half the berries and then mix with yogurt, cinnamon, and honey. Serve apples with yogurt topping and extra berries sprinkled on top. Sprinkle slivered almonds on top if desired.