By Phran Novelli

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - One of the sweetest ways to celebrate the Fourth of July is with some of our most patriotic fruits: native blueberries and raspberries. Both are easy to grow in a sunny spot in your yard, but even if you don’t have your own berry bushes, they’re plentiful this year so they should be part of any red, white and blue menu.

Of course you can bake berries into pies – try mixing blueberries with raspberries in a pie like my mom did last year – if you’ve never tried it before you might want to bake two, that’s how good they taste together. But if it’s too hot to bake, you can always serve some quick sundaes of red raspberries and blueberries over vanilla ice cream.

Even easier – freeze berries and use them to cool drinks without diluting them. Rinse berries and freeze them in single layers in a large plastic container or on cookie sheets so they don’t stick together. Then just add a few frozen red and blue berries to glasses of champagne, clear soda, white wine sangria, or piña coladas for a berry festive Fourth of July barbeque.