old-fashioned strawberry shortcake

For the past 8 years, we've headed to the strawberry patches each spring to pick (and eat) those incredible sun-ripened berries. There is nothing like a fresh, perfectly-ripe strawberry. One of the things I first loved about springtime in Washington was the abundance of berries! We get them all...strawberries in June, followed by raspberries (both golden and red) and blueberries in July, and blackberries in August. The kids also pick wild salmon berries along the trails when we are mountain biking or hiking.

This year, instead of traveling to a strawberry farm, we simply had to cross the yard to our garden to harvest pounds and pounds of luscious, juicy strawberries! I won't lie, it's been heaven!

With an unusually warm winter and cooler than average spring, the rest of the garden and fruit trees are seriously confused and floundering a bit. But the berries exploded. We've canned nearly 30 jars of jam and have almost filled the freezer full of gallon sized bags of frozen strawberries. We can pick and pick and pick and still not finish. We have the ever-bearing strawberries which produce all summer, so this certainly won't be the last strawberry recipe I share, but it might be the best!

I found this recipe in the Edible Seattle Magazine May/June issue. I love that magazine! The instructions are quite detailed, and you could make the biscuits, whip the cream, slice the berries and assemble and it would be fine, but after reading the article which devoted an entire page discussing the way to turn an ordinary shortcake into a memorable one, I decided to follow the recipe exactly and slice, macerate, and smash the berries. The author pointed out that you need lots of juices to make the best shortcake, and after trying it this way, I totally agree. These were heavenly. I made them for breakfast for the kids and their friends who had spent the night. They all licked their bowls clean, surprise surprise.

Jon Rowley's Super Sumptious Old Fashioned Strawberry Shortcake with Drop Biscuits

Biscuits
2 cups all purpose flour (I'm sure you could use whole wheat pastry or spelt)
1 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon bakign powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 ounces (one stick) butter, chilled
1 cup milk
2 tablespoons cream

Preheat over to 400 degrees. Grease a baking sheet.
Put all the dry ingredients together in a food processor. Pulse. Chop a stick of butter into small cubes. Add them to the flour and pulse till the mixture resembles rough meal. Add the milk and pulse until the dough starts to pull away from the bowl. DO NOT OVERMIX!

Spoon the dough in six equal portions onto the baking sheet. Brush the tops lightly with cream. Bake for 15 minutes, or until golden brown.

Berries
3 pints of ripe strawberries (they need to be juicy!)
1-4 tablespoons of sugar

Hull and slice 1/3 of the strawberries into large, irregular chunks. Cut any small berries in half vertically. Add a tablespoon or two of sugar and let the berries macerate for an hour.

10-15 minutes before you're ready to eat the shortcakes, tear 1/3 of the berries. Hold a small handful of berries in one hand, place your other hand on top and gently apply pressure while twisting over a bowl, this motion pulls the fruit apart into soft pieces without crushing their structure. Add a small amoutn of sugar to taste.

Slice and add the remaining 1/3 of your fresh berries. Combine all berries and add sugar to taste. Reserve some smaller whole berries to garnish.

Whipped Cream
2 cups heavy cream, chilled
2 tablespoons sugar or to taste

Using electric mixture or wire wisk, whip the cream and sugar until it forms soft, but slightly firm peaks.

Assembly
Slice a biscuit in half. Place bottom half on a plate. Top with a moderate pile of berries, a little extra juice and a big spoonful of whipping cream. Cover with the top half of the biscuit, anothe rlayer of berries and c ream in slightly smaller quantities than the first layer. For the final touch, drizzle a tablespoon of juice over the top and garnish with a small, whole strawberry.


Mmmm, mmmm, good! A big mosquito bite on the cheek and strawberry shortcake in the mouth, that's about as summer as it gets!

red wheat berry cereal

I'm always on the lookout for tasty whole-grain breakfasts. Here is one our family loves!



1 cup red wheat berries
honey, nutmeg, cinnamon
Berries, apples, walnuts, raisins, craisins...whatever topping suits you
Yogurt topping (plain yogurt, maple syrup, cinnamon and vanilla extract)

Soak wheat berries overnight. (My friend eats them in the morning without boiling them. I did not notice much of a difference after having boiled them for about 30 minutes. So, you decide!)

I did not measure for the yogurt, just made it according to taste. When the wheat berries are done squeeze two or so teaspoons of honey, then sprinkle with nutmeg and cinnamon. Add your toppings and enjoy.

My favorite version of this was made with apples, cinnamon, nutmeg, honey and walnuts. The options are endless.

beet soup

There are two vegetables that I really don't care for but have always tried to eat anyway, beets and yams. So I'm always very excited when I find a recipe that looks delicious and involves either one of these nutritionally dense beauties. Ironically, two of my all-time favorite recipes involve yams.



Beet Soup
Miss Dahl's Voluptuous Delights: Recipes for Every Season, Mood, and Appetite

6 med sized beets, washed but not peeled
5 scallions, white parts only
Olive oil
6 cups of chicken stock (I am loyal to "Organic Better than Buillon" Chicken Base. To me it makes up the best tasting chicken broth I've had.)
Juice of 1/2 lemon
2 T. creme fraiche, plus extra for serving
salt and pepper
A good handful of chopped fresh dill
Chopped hard-boiled egg, to serve (optional)

Wash and trim the stalky bits from the beets. Sweat scallions in a pan with some olive oil on low heat until they are translucent. Then add the stock to the scallions and leave on low heat to warm.

In another pan, cover the beets with water, bring to boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for about 30 min. or until the beets are tender. Drain, and when cool enough to handle peel off the skins and cut into rough chunks.

Put beets into blender with scallion stock and puree until smooth. Add the lemon juice and creme fraiche, season and give the mixture a whizz in the blender. You can serve warm or cold. Garnish with creme fraiche, dill and chopped hard-boiled egg... which, by the way, sinks to the bottom but makes the soup really yummy.

asian noodle salad + fried tofu

My sister, Erin, and I both love to cook, so naturally we also like to talk about food a lot. Seldom do we have a phone conversation where one of us doesn't mention something we've made, something we want to try, and even recent "flops" (kale chips anyone?) Whether it's meal planning, new recipes, food ruts, new healthy treats we've tried, and not so healthy ones, or our not so little dream of opening a healthy "fast food" restaurant, we just love to share our findings with each other.

(Miss you, Erin!)


One of our recent conversations revolved around finding meal-type salad recipes that we can make up ahead of time and keep in the fridge for several days and nibble on. Obviously these aren't of the green tossed salad variety as they wouldn't keep. Since I'm currently working my way back through a lot of Cynthia Lair's recipes, I made the Asian Noodle Salad with Fried Tofu this weekend. Great simple recipe!

Unfortunately, not a bit made it to the refrigerator for the intended purpose of having leftovers. I had a very little bit of it before running Sela off to her tennis match. I returned to the big serving bowl completely empty and sitting in the sink with just a few drops of dressing left :( Turns out both Zig and Rollin liked the salad, a lot. I was both bummed and happy at the same time. This salad had kale, red cabbage, carrots, red & yellow bell pepper, zucchini, cilantro, sesame seeds, radishes, and TOFU! Rollin apparently had a huge bowl and and a second helping. So I couldn't be too dissappointed, but I was hungry.


Just the veggies. pretty huh?

Now back to the tofu. None of us are fans of tofu, especially the kids, but I gave it another try and prepared the marinated pan fried tofu and it was delicious. For real. This is definitely the way I will prepare tofu in the future. Sometimes chicken just sounds so gross and fish doesn't work in the recipe so it's really nice to be able to have a way to use tofu. And the tofu is lightly fried in coconut oil, need I say more?! (Plus, if you have little kitchen helpers around, tofu is really fun to cut up into little squares.)



I made the salad again the following day because we had lots of veggies and because I wanted more than two bites. When I make this salad, I loosely follow the recipe, I don't measure anything, and I add lots more veggies than are listed in the recipe, but I know it's also great just exactly as written. Since I doubled the recipe, kind of, I needed a little extra dressing at the end so instead of making another round of dressing, I just used a little soyaki that we had in the fridge, and that worked just fine. We've been eating if for the past few days, took some on a day trip to San Juan Island, and I'm pleased to report, this salad keeps very well. Add that to the list, Erin!

And here it is, Asian Noodle Salad with Fried Tofu.

bi bop breakfast

Yesterday, Zig got up with Evan and made the both of them breakfast. So what's a sane mother to do when the early bird is occupied? Sleep in, of course. But I can never really go back to sleep in the morning so I walked a couple steps to my computer and visited one of my favorite cooking sites. I can't rave enough about Cynthia Lair, but suffice it to say she's the real deal. I've seen her lecture, been in a class of hers at Bastyr, attended her cooking classes, and own her cookbooks. She's fantastic.

But anyway, after just a few minutes browsing her breakfast recipes, I was totally inspired to try this new breakfast called Be Bop Breakfast. And it did not disappoint. It's a take on a Korean dish that I love as well. In fact I had to run find Zig out in the yard afterwards and tell him about the awesome breakfast I was going to make for him the next day. We eat eggs and kale a lot in the mornings, but this recipe had rice and the condiments really make it sing, especially the Thai Chili sauce. A definite new favorite. In fact, I just made it again!

carrot soup with lemon & ginger

Here is the recipe for a wonderfully healthy spring soup I made at a cooking class this week. I didn't have time to take pictures the night of as I was busy trying to make 6 dishes in 1 1/2 hours, but the kids had some leftovers for lunch the next day. They loved it, especially the color.



















Carrot Soup with Lemon and Ginger
Bon Appétit June 1997

1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter
1 1/2 cups chopped onion
1 tablespoon finely chopped peeled fresh ginger
1 1/2 teaspoons minced garlic
1 1/4 pounds medium carrots, peeled, chopped (about 3 cups)
2 tomatoes, seeded, chopped (about 1 1/3 cups)
1 1/2 teaspoons grated lemon peel
3 cups (or more) chicken stock or canned low-salt broth
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
4 tablespoons sour cream
1 small carrot, peeled, grated
Melt butter in heavy large pot over medium-high heat. Add onion; sauté 4 minutes. Add ginger and garlic; sauté 2 minutes. Add chopped carrots, tomatoes and lemon peel; sauté 1 minute. Add 3 cups stock and bring to boil. Reduce heat, cover partially and simmer until carrots are very tender, about 20 minutes. Cool slightly. Puree soup in batches in blender. Return soup to pot. Mix in lemon juice. Season with salt and pepper. (Can be made 1 day ahead. Cover and chill.)
Bring soup to simmer, thinning with more stock, if desired. Ladle into bowls. Top each with sour cream and grated carrot.

wild rice sour cherry soup

Here is the recipe for the soup I mentioned in the previous post (thanks Lisa!) The last time I made the soup, I added shredded chicken from a rotisserie chicken (just a little bit) and some white wine to add some depth, but it's delicious even without those additions.



Wild Rice-Sour Cherry Soup

4 Tbsp. unsalted butter
1 or 2 carrots, finely chopped
1 celery stalk, finely chopped
1/2 cup finely chopped onion
3 Tbsp all purpose flour
3 cups chicken stock
1 1/2 cups cooked wild rice
1/2 cup dried sour cherries (or cranberries)
1 cup milk or hald and half
*shredded chicken
*1/3 cup dry white wine

Melt the butter in a heavy bottomed sauce pan over medium heat. Add the carrot, celery and onion; cook, stirring occasionally, until hte carrot is tender, about 8 minutes. Add hte flour and stir until smooth. Gradually add the stock, whisking constantly to prevent lumps. Increase the heat to medium-high and stir until the soup is thickened, about 5 minutes. Stir in the rice and dried sour cherries. Reduce the heat;cover and simmer stirring occasionally, until the cherries are softened and plumped, about 15 minutes. Stir in all the remaining ingredients. Stir occasionally until warmed through. Season with satl and pepper to taste.