With our first batch of strawberries from Whittaker's, I immediately made strawberry pie, strawberry popsicles and prepped strawberry ice cream. The ice cream is the Cuisinart ice cream freezer recipe and it needs to chill overnight before it goes into the machine so it just got to that point.
I tried a new pie recipe this year that just uses pureed (and halved) strawberries, lemon juice, sugar and cornstarch instead of the typical Jell-O recipe. The binding sauce cooked so nicely on the stove top and seemed to be getting perfectly thick and ready to set... and then it didn't. Not even overnight and then some. I was bummed. I have never gotten a strawberry pie to set. Ever. Maybe I just didn't cook it long enough? Oh well. I just served it to my little family and they didn't complain. The taste was wonderful and we had a scoop of ice cream to go with.
The kids love thes Weelicious popsicles. They're not my fave 'cause they're not very sweet. ;)
But ohhh! Wait till you see this! These were sooooo good.
We actually waited a few days to churn/freeze the ice cream just because we had busy evenings and I wanted to make sure we could eat the ice cream the night we made it. The thing I noticed about the strawberry ice cream I made for Sophie's party was that it tasted amazing when it was just churned/frozen and still pretty soft. Once it froze solid in the actual freezer, it tasted much more... umm... icey, I guess? More bland and not as rich. But as it softened it got better again. So I wanted to serve this just cold enough to be eaten as ice cream but not so cold it was hard. Know what I mean?
And I even one-upped it from there... with homemade waffle cones!!! Oh! Such a treat!!! Craig's grandmother gave me a waffle cone maker (like a waffle iron but not as deep of ridges on the irons and obviously a different recipe) years ago and I've made them a couple times before. They are soooo good and really make this a perfect summer time dessert.
Sophie helped me stir the batter for the cones.
And this is what that looks like. Batter is spooned by 1/3 cupfulls and then folded around a white, plastic cone to form the cone shape. Hot! Hot! Hot on your finger tips right off the iron, but it's not too bad.
The bottom of the cones is not exactly a point like the store-bought kind but they were totally sealed. No leakage!
I set my cones upright in a batter bowl and scooped the ice cream inside.
DELICIOUS!!! Doesn't get any more summery than this.
Our second trip to a strawberry farm was to Polter's in Fremont on the morning of June 2nd. It was chillier this morning, hence our jeans and jackets, but it was a beautiful day and the picking was very nice. I love this farm too. Really beautiful. Sophie and I went with our friends Nichole & Charlize and Lisa & Megan (our babysitter and her daughter). It was really nice because Sophie loves these people and looks up to Megan so much, so the little girls could just sort of float back and forth between the adults and always be in good hands.
Her new rain boots were in order for this day. :)
Charli & Sophie
And Megan too!
Strawberry shortcake was a MUST with this batch because I've basically been looking forward to it since last June. And it did NOT disappoint. :)
Also picked up some rhubarb at Polter's at check out and made a rhubarb strawberry sauce (just cooked down on the stove top with sugar and lemon juice) to top my ice cream, oatmeal, pancakes, whatever!
It was really good over plain Weelicious crock pot oatmeal (I left the cinnamon out).
Needless to say, we've also been eating a lot of them plain or simply on top of ice cream for dessert or smashed up into lemonade or to top a spinach salad with pecans.
We are fully cherishing strawberry season over here!
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