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| My 3 absolute favorite spring goodies |
From the looks of things, the massive wave of ripe berries will hit next week.
I had originally considered not making jam this year (we still have quite a bit left from last year), but many of the other strawberry recipes I'd like to try are just as time consuming, so I think I'll go ahead and make jam after all.
I also want to try at least a few other goodies, and am scouring my cookbooks and the web for ideas.
I am really beginning to enjoy cooking by the harvest seasons - that mindset and gardening in general had been so foreign to me.
This week I've experimented with asparagus and spinach recipes - my two all time favorite spring veggies. I'll post our new family favorites sometime soon.
Does anyone have any links or recipe ideas they'd like to share? Any input y'all have is greatly appreciated :-)
Oh, and here's a yummy video to provide some strawberry inspiration:
I love making spinach manicotti. Or spinich rolls. Or smoothies with raw spinich thrown in. Oh, or spinach quiche. As for asparagus, other than as a side dish or in a stir-fry, I have cooked it and fried a piece of bologna, and rolled the asparagus in the bologna. Terrible for you, not very filling, but a very tasty treat! :)
ReplyDeleteI want to know how you get such big strawberries!
MMMMM...manicotti! I don't normally do a lot of pasta, but I happen to have some mozzarella that needs to be used. Good idea!
ReplyDeleteBologna is indeed terrible for you - but I really, really enjoy it when I have it. Childhood memories, I guess. :-)
I don't know why our strawberries are so big, exactly. I know that we can only hope to get 3 seasons of harvest off a bed before the berries get small and/or disappear, so the age of the plants may play a role. We used horse manure to fertilize - nothing else. Oh, and we make sure they get plenty of consistent water while the berries are developing. I think those little details work together. I really don't know what I'm doing yet - I just follow the instructions in gardening books :-)
I think it might have more to do with the watering than anything. I just (accidentally) ran an experiment on a plant we have, which is at least 3 years old. For the first few berries, the plant didn't get much water, and produced tiny berries. For the last couple of weeks, it's been watered thoroughly every day, and the berries are much bigger! Oops. I guess it's my fault we don't get big strawberries!
ReplyDeleteAnd, since learning how to make it, I have come to LOVE manicotti! It's so much easier than lasagna, and just as tasty! :)
Oh, I also saw something easy and delicious you could do with the strawberries. You get a package of the easy-to-make cheesecake stuff, cut the tops off and hollow the berries, fill with the cheesecake filling, then dip that in the crumb crust stuff. (is it blatantly obvious I don't buy that, and don't eat cheesecake, so I have no clue what I'm talking about?! It looked pretty, though, lol!) It also works with raspberries. :)
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