Saturday, June 7, 2008

Strawberries & Pizza (but not together)

So the first of the pick-your-own season is upon us- coming late this year due to some cooler weather (so I am told), the local pick your own strawberries were not ready until after Memorial Day (my own few garden strawberries had come and gone by then, so I guess i have early bloomers).

Anyway, 2 flats of strawberries became:
  • several desserts (including homemade strawberry shortcake, complete w/ homemade whipped cream and homemade "shortcakes")
  • a quart of frozen (hull, cut, toss with sugar, put in freezer bag)
  • 8 half pints of jam (next time I'm going to try a low-sugar pectin), and
  • 4 pints of strawberry-lemonade concentrate (canned with lemon, sugar, and strawberry puree).
I think next up are the cherries. I may attempt pie, the baked dish I find most difficult to do right.

I also had some good luck making pizza this weekend (and some bad luck too- one of my pizzas fell to the bottom of the oven while i was taking it out and burned a bit- my friend graciously said, "it's just smoky"). Anyway, the pizza stone I got really helps make a nice crisp-outside, soft inside crust. I used my CSA spring onions in a carmelized onion/prosciutto one, and tomatoes, basil, garlic, olive oil, and homemade mozzarella in my "almost all local" one (farmer's market garlic, tomato, and garden basil).

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