rebbermade

HAVE STRAWBERRIES?

Here's what we've done so far with our first berries of the season...



Eat straight out of the field or backyard alternating bites of berry and dark chocolate.





Make freezer jam with this recipe. (Scroll down to Jean's Strawberry Jam which doesn't require pectin.)



Bake muffins. I've used this recipe from Moosewood Restaurant Cooks at Home many times. We do the blueberry variation with last summer's frozen berries. This time I added a little strawberry topper.



And then we headed back out to the fields to pick more for pie.



Not surprisingly, he was rubbing his eyes when we were out there because it was right smack in the middle of what should have been naptime. He wouldn't sleep so we picked instead. The cold really hit him later that night. He must have been starting to feel cruddy and everything was going wonky with his sleep patterns.



This pie was work! I wanted to use a gelatin alternative and a woman at the co-op suggested arrowroot or agar. I opted for arrowroot which was the wrong choice. The juice thickened, but after sitting in the fridge overnight it hadn't set a bit. So, poor pie, I scooped out the filling, re-drained the berries, and cooked the liquid again with agar. (Oh my! That stuff is expensive!) It set up for sure this time, and the shortbread crust hadn't even gotten soggy from all the abuse. But then I got a little cold and my nose is stuffy, so I can't even really taste the pie now that it is all said and done.



Hopefully my nose will clear soon so I can tell you if all the work and re-work was even worth it. Gourmet seemed to think it was.