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!