Strawberry Season
The Easiest Recipe In The World
It is finally strawberry season here in McMinnville. It's also rhubarb season. Obviously my mind is full of the possibilities...Rhubarb/strawberry crisp
Vanilla custard topped with a compote of rhubarb and strawberries
Rhubarb/strawberry tart
I keep buying pints of strawberries, taking them home with the full intention of making something really fancy so I can post it here and have someone tell me I'm a genius (us humans really are pathetically fragile) and then I eat just one to see how good it is.
The insides are red, as strawberries should be, they are juicy, they are strongly perfumed, and the flavor bursts open like fireworks over a bank of snow. The flavor says the winter is truly behind us. The spring is nearly behind us as well. Straight ahead lies all the flavors and textures that make the summer so worth the wait!
Needless to say, before I know it the pint is empty, my fingers are red, and I still have rhubarb to use. I'm not ready to eat rhubarb without strawberries. I'm still vaguely suspicious of rhubarb, a vegetable that is still quite new to me.
We've been doing our version of the eat local challenge for six months now. Although there have been plenty of transgressions with items like condiments and Max's snack foods (I am having trouble not eating his packaged food when I'm really hungry and don't know what to make), we've really stuck to our guns with the produce which was the main goal anyway. Onions got scarce, garlic is nonexistent, and I haven't had salad at home for weeks. I still only get salad when I go out to eat (which is allowed in the rules of our making). No citrus but what was gifted to us. Not a lot of fruit for us this winter. Apples and home canned pears and peaches.
So the tangy sweetness and huge flavor of these small local strawberries (not the kind you can ship, they are very tender and exactly as a strawberry should be) is fulfilling a need for vitamin C foods. I feel thirsty for them like I haven't had water in months. When my body has been without fresh sources of vitamin C it feels dry and parched. I could eat a field of these berries. I am excited for the real season to begin- when I can go to the fields myself and gather u-pick strawberries to freeze and can. I didn't have my freezer in time last year to freeze any and all winter I wished I could chew on frozen chunks of strawberry or add them to muffins.
So for now, here is my recipe for enjoying the first local fresh strawberries of the season:
Rinse off the soil
Eat as many as you can at the kitchen sink
It doesn't get fresher or easier than that.*
*Unless you have a patch of them in your own garden...that is the ultimate way to eat them. Right in your garden with the dirt still clinging to them.
The insides are red, as strawberries should be, they are juicy, they are strongly perfumed, and the flavor bursts open like fireworks over a bank of snow. The flavor says the winter is truly behind us. The spring is nearly behind us as well. Straight ahead lies all the flavors and textures that make the summer so worth the wait!
Needless to say, before I know it the pint is empty, my fingers are red, and I still have rhubarb to use. I'm not ready to eat rhubarb without strawberries. I'm still vaguely suspicious of rhubarb, a vegetable that is still quite new to me.
We've been doing our version of the eat local challenge for six months now. Although there have been plenty of transgressions with items like condiments and Max's snack foods (I am having trouble not eating his packaged food when I'm really hungry and don't know what to make), we've really stuck to our guns with the produce which was the main goal anyway. Onions got scarce, garlic is nonexistent, and I haven't had salad at home for weeks. I still only get salad when I go out to eat (which is allowed in the rules of our making). No citrus but what was gifted to us. Not a lot of fruit for us this winter. Apples and home canned pears and peaches.
So the tangy sweetness and huge flavor of these small local strawberries (not the kind you can ship, they are very tender and exactly as a strawberry should be) is fulfilling a need for vitamin C foods. I feel thirsty for them like I haven't had water in months. When my body has been without fresh sources of vitamin C it feels dry and parched. I could eat a field of these berries. I am excited for the real season to begin- when I can go to the fields myself and gather u-pick strawberries to freeze and can. I didn't have my freezer in time last year to freeze any and all winter I wished I could chew on frozen chunks of strawberry or add them to muffins.
So for now, here is my recipe for enjoying the first local fresh strawberries of the season:
Rinse off the soil
Eat as many as you can at the kitchen sink
It doesn't get fresher or easier than that.*
*Unless you have a patch of them in your own garden...that is the ultimate way to eat them. Right in your garden with the dirt still clinging to them.
Labels: eat local challenge, food, local produce, strawberries