Blueberry Crumb Bars

When I was little, my Yia-Yia's backyard was completely lined with blueberry bushes, and one of my favorite childhood memories is going out into her backyard with her to pick berries, so blueberries have been one of my favorites my whole life.

Although I love blueberry pie, I really wanted to try something different with the berries this time, and I found a great recipe for blueberry bars on Smitten Kitchen's fabulous site. If you've never visited her site, please do, it puts mine to shame. I only wish I was as creative of a baker, and as talented of a photographer.

But anyway, these bars attracted me because they seemed simple and straightforward, and yet big on taste. I have very little spare time, so I try to get the biggest baking bang for my buck, so to speak, and this recipe looked like it fit the bill.

Cherry Pie with Almond Crumb Topping

This is my second cherry pie this summer, the previous being a traditional 2-crust pie. Having made a quick lemon meringue pie over the weekend, I was left with enough crust for a single-crust pie. And when I saw the cherries in the supermarket, I decided that now was the time to try the crumb-topped cherry pie that I had been pondering since the last cherry pie I made. I decided to leave the filling basically the same as my previous pie, I have reposted the ingredients below for convenience.

Key Lime Coconut Crumb Bars

My husband and I have this  deal, you see. He really isn’t into sweets, which is rather unfortunate since all I know how to do is bake.  He will, however, make an exception for several things that incorporate fruit, such as the thumbprint cookies from a previous posting. I promised, in keeping with the theme of the approaching summer, that all of my baking would include fruit until at least the end of August.
 

So when I saw this recipe on the Pioneer Woman Cooks, I knew I had to try it. After all, it’s Ree Drummond.  Have you met Ree? If not, then head on over to The Pioneer Woman ASAP. You’ll thank me. Not only does she bake, she cooks, and her recipes are insanely good, her writing is always entertaining, and her photos are gorgeous. 

Anyway, on Ree’s site, there was this darling recipe for lemon crumb squares. And it caught my eye, because I was just talking about lemon squares with my mother the other week. But we were talking about more traditional shortbread-bottomed, cooked pudding-topped lemon squares. Ree’s recipe is a variation that uses two layers of crumbs that are cousins to coffee cake crumbs, except without cinnamon…and way denser…and with oatmeal...with a delicious layer of lemon sandwiched between them. And then, the clincher:  Ree casually mentions at the bottom of her post that the recipe would also work for key limes.