cruelly delicious

All week we've been eating strawberries - on biscuits with whipped cream, on waffles for breakfast, with low-fat plain yogurt for a snack, and plain, tucked in to our bento boxes as gap fillers. The most decadent preparation, however, has been these amazing strawberry cupcakes.

I generally bake cakes from scratch, but yesterday I was feeling lazy and so I cheated. I used a boxed white cake mix ($.99 at Walmart) and prepared as directed, except that I used a cup of pureed strawberries instead of water. The batter should have been a warning not to proceed; of course I licked the spoon, and it was so cruelly delicious that I knew we would be powerless to resist these cupcakes.

For the frosting, I used a variation on my grandmother's buttercream frosting (recipe below). As usual, I left out the shortening and added a little more butter, but I also added a touch of pureed strawberries and some almond flavoring, and here's the kicker - melted white chocolate chips. Knee-shakingly delicious! Even my husband, who normally doesn't care for sweets all that much, kept going back to the platter for more.

Grammy's Basic Buttercream Frosting
1/4 c. butter, softened
1/4 c. shortening
2 c. powdered sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
milk (usually 1-2 tsp.)

Cream butter and shortening. Add powdered sugar, a little at a time, and beat. Beat in vanilla and as much milk as needed to reach desired consistency. Go easy on the milk! It only takes a little to make it very creamy.

For a nice variation, replace the shortening with cream cheese or peanut butter.

by special request

Strawberry soup, because my hubby asked for it.

Just strawberries, yogurt, and orange juice blended together. Really more of a thin smoothie, served with a spoon. I made a simple salad (lettuce, carrots, apples, cheddar) and we ate while watching Goodnight Burbank.

That didn't last long.

It was a very simple meal, but Dan loved it. It's nice that he's so easy to please.

Mmm.....

Strawberries!



I didn't just make lasagna yesterday. Dan and I also went strawberry picking at Killdeer Farm. It was raining when we left, but since the farm is about ten miles from our house, we decided to head out anyway, in case the weather was better there. It wasn't, but that didn't stop us from picking six heaping quarts. The rain was pretty light, but we got plenty wet. I'd say it was well worth it. There's nothing better than fresh-picked strawberries.



Today I hulled and sliced half of the strawberries. We'll eat as much as we can this week and freeze the rest. Last year we went strawberry picking with my grandmother and the three of us picked twelve pounds in no time. It was such a treat last winter when everything was gray and snowbound to pull some strawberries out of the freezer. I'm looking forward to it again already.

But meanwhile, this week, we get to eat them fresh. We started tonight with some strawberry shortcake:



I used this biscuit recipe, which was fantastic. They rose up so huge and puffy - literally quadrupling in height! Perfectly flaky yet somehow dense and hearty enough to withstand the assault of the strawberry juices. I whipped up some heavy cream with a little vanilla and almond flavoring and just a touch of sugar. The result was heavenly.