Strawberries!!!

It is officially strawberry season in Georgia. We haven't gone to pick our own yet, but when we went to the Dekalb Farmer's Market last night - they had Georgia Strawberries for $6 per half flat (that's 5 pounds of berries). I bought a half flat. We ate some last night, they were good.

Today I experimented in the kitchen with 4 different recipes involving strawberries. I felt like an Iron Chef on Food Network, on Battle Strawberry, but I didn't do it all in an hour.

First, I made another fruit rollup. It is in the dehydrator right now, and I mixed some strawberry banana V8 Splash in with it. I hope it comes out a little sweeter than the last. The Motts no-sugar-added Apple White Grape Juice made the last one too tart for my wife's taste.

Secondly, I have made a lot of different kinds of fresh salsa over the years. I can make a great tomato salsa, a good pineapple one, and I have also made good peach and tomatilla varieties. So - I decided to make a strawberry salsa. I incorporated a serrano pepper, a thai green chili (cayenne) pepper, some purple cayenne pepper I ground up myself last year, cilantro and strawberries. I think it is good, although it is (not surprisingly) quite sweet. But a sweet vs. spicy battle in the condiment makes it quite tasty.

Those were the easy ones. I also made two things that are more complicated - preserves and a cake. The cake looks delicious and is trying my self power. I promised my wife that I wouldn't eat it while she was away at her meeting. We'll take it to a house-warming party this evening.

The recipe is from grouprecipes.com:

1 cup butter

1 3/4 cup sugar

5 egg whites

2 teaspoon strawberry extract

2 cups pureed fresh strawberries

1/2 cup sour cream

3 cups cake flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Grease and flour three 9" cake pans.

In a large mixing bowl,beat sugar and butter at medium speed with an electric mixer until fluffy.

Add strawberry extract,pureed strawberries,and sour cream. Beat until combined.

In a medium mixing bowl,sift together flour,baking powder,soda,and salt.

Gradually add to butter mixture,beating until combined.

Beat egg whites until stiff peaks form. Gently fold into batter.

Pour batter evenly into prepared pans.

Bake for 30-35 minutes or until a wooden toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Let cool in pans for 10 minutes then turn out onto wire racks.

Cool completely.

I then made a basic glaze (2 tsp warm milk + 1/2 cup of confectioner's sugar whisked together) and mixed it with about 6 finely chopped strawberries. I baked it in a bundt pan and put the glaze over top. (took a double batch of the glaze for the bundt cake and two mini bundt cakes - and I only made about 2/3 of the recipe!)

I also got adventurous and decided to make some 'Strawberry Margarita Preserves' from the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving. It tastes good. Of course, strawberries and tequila - who could argue with that?

I won't post that recipe, but it was good. Strawberries and Apples, cooked down and then you add tequila at the end (technically it calls for orange liquor, but we didn't have any, so I subbed tequila for that as well).

That tastes good, especially on a fresh loaf of sourdough bread that my wife made last night.

That's it for now - more to come soon!

Regional Strawberries

Local is great, followed closely by regional. For (Atlanta,) Georgia, regional (instead of local), could mean Tennessee, Alabama, South Carolina or Florida. Areas that are somewhat close, but not an hour away.

There was an unusual end to the winter. A late cold snap this year ended up hurting the Florida strawberry crops, delaying them a little while. This was devastating to some Florida farmers, causing the price to harvest the crops to be higher than the resale value! Indeed, one farm opened up for a free pick-your-own day. I wish it was closer.

Publix partnered with some farmers to keep them from tilling the crops over and as a result had a HUGE sale on Florida (regional) strawberries this week. A 32 ounce container was only $2.50. Yes, you read that right. We're planning on going to a strawberry farm (maybe next weekend? - stay tuned) and so we bought a package, with the intention of seeing what we could do with the dehydrator and some strawberries.

Here's my new dehydrator - I bought it on craigslist for $20 about a month ago. Apparently the woman wanted to make freeze dried fruit, and didn't realize this didn't do that... excellent, I win. My old one got fried in an electrical problem at our house last year.

So, here's the two things I did today with my new little toy.

1. You can slice them, keep them in the dehydrator for a while, and once the water is gone, you have a delicious snack. Keep them in a glass jar (they keep better).

Yum - and there's a few more that need a little more time. I'm positive that we'll want more of these after we go strawberry pickin in a week or so.

2. I tried to make fruit rollups! I couldn't get the shapes, like in the ones we had when I was a kid, to work out though. I used a food processor to puree some berries, and then I added some Mott's Apple White Grape Juice (like 3 cap-fulls) to about 15 berries. You pour the mixture on the fruit rollup try (I have 3) and run it for a while...

The mixture peels off and you eat some and put some in a ziploc bag for later...

It's not as pretty as the pre-packaged stuff and it won't last as long. I like it- my wife thinks I need to use the juice that isn't low in sugar next time (maybe it is a little bitter), but it is good. And voila, there's a nice snack for me at work. Yum...

And by the way, not only is strawberry pickin comin up... my strawberry plants in my pot are starting to bloom and look like they will make some fruit, so keep watchin for when I make strawberry jam, freeze some berries, and figure out a good smoothie recipe, and maybe a strawberry pie!

It's Planting Time!

Bandit's partner in crime is, I believe, no longer part of this world. I never knew a rat could eat that much poison.

I have been planting the garden. YAY!

I planted some sunflowers that I started from seed in the neighbor's greenhouse. I also planted green, yellow, and burgundy beans (seeds). All of these were bush beans, as pole beans a) go crazy and b) don't taste as good. Then I planted some sweet dumpling squash, a lot of zucchini, yellow squash, and a few scalloped squash that I started in the last two weeks. I also planted some cayenne peppers, heirloom tomatoes, and started planting bell peppers.

So, I would like to send a kudos to the Oakhurst Community Garden. I went to their annual plant sale with my beautiful wife today. I got 5 varieties of heirloom tomatoes, two varieties of peppers, red basil, and two eggplants. I like how all their plants are only $1 or $2. I can't believe that if I go to Lowe's or Home Depot, plant prices surge to $3.50 per plant! And those don't taste as good!

I think I still need more bell pepper plants and jalapenos, but the rest of the garden is set. Only a few more plants to plant, and we are all planted for the summer.

I'll post some pictures in the next few days when it isn't dark as I remember to take pictures.