Blackberry Milkshakes

Blackberry bushes are a real pain. Literally! 

Every time I try to cut them back I am left with scrapes and scratches all over my arms and legs. Ouch!

Living where we do, we've got berry bushes popping up EVERYWHERE. It's a full time job just to keep them from taking over. This year, I noticed a ton of flowers on one set of bushes, so I decided to let them go for the summer before cutting them back. Boy was I rewarded! Every week my kids and I have been able to pick a large tub of big, sweet, juicy berries. For free! (Actually, I've decided that they are probably being watered by the leak in our pool, so I'm really paying to water them...... but it feels like free. Haha!)

 You can't really tell from this picture, but this is more than 5 cups of berries! This would cost about 20 bucks at the store!

We've been eating some of the berries straight off the vine, but I've been freezing most of them to use over the winter. I've also made peach blackberry crisp (SO YUMMY) and blackberry bran muffins (they were a little too dense so I need to tweak the recipe a little). And last night, we made blackberry milkshakes! Wow, were they delicious!

Aren't they a beautiful shade of purple? You'd think I added food coloring to get this color!

They were super easy to make, too. Put a few scoops of vanilla ice cream in your blender. Add a few handfuls of berries and some milk (a little at a time until you get a good consistency). That's it! I don't really like fruity ice cream, so I was surprised at how delicious they were. I will be making these again before blackberry season is over!