Tuesday, July 5, 2011

July 4th and Berry Season!

Hello! Hope you had a great July 4th!


We did.  Look at that cake!  Erin's strawberry-blueberry flag cake is now a tradition.  Especially eaten in Washington Park during the fireworks.

It's the tail end of strawberry season, with overlap of the next crop: raspberries, blackberries, and blueberries.

Sadly, I didn't see any berries at the farmers market this week, but I have been running into them pretty much everywhere else.




As yummy as they are straight from the crate, I've been experimenting anyway.  Mostly with the strawberries, since I don't really like them a lot by themselves (thanks to an unfortunate strike of the stomach flu immediately after strawberry shortcake about 4 years ago).

So... I made muffins!



They were very pretty, and made a lovely breakfast.  I just followed my basic muffin recipe but added 1 cup of fresh diced strawberries. (And left out the whole wheat flour to keep them light.)

I still had a bunch left over, so I sliced the really ripe ones and put them over my pancakes with some Hay maple syrup.  This was my best idea yet.  Pretty super.


I mean, that's restaurant quality.

That gave me the idea for my leftover blueberries.


As I was making the pancakes, I let the blueberries cook down in a sauce pan with some water, honey, and a little butter.

(Also notice the superb scrambled eggs complimenting my pancakes.  That's what I call team work.)

Berry season is quick... enjoy them!

2 comments:

  1. What beautiful uses for berries! I especially love the flag cake. Bookmarking that for next year (or next time I get hit with the spirit of patriotism... who says I have to wait a year??)!

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  2. OMG remember my strawberry incident in 8th grade? horrible food poisoning. i can't even stand the smell of them now, lol! it drives brendan crazy!

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