Memories and Strawberries

From a young age, I knew from where my food originated. I helped my maternal grandmother plant potatoes and pick rhubarb and apples. I picked strawberries with my paternal grandmother. I weeded and planted gardens with my Mom. We fished for pan fish, trout and salmon on Lake Michigan, smelt and sucker’s during their runs. I was a part of animals being raised for food, whether it was chickens, pigs, cows, or rabbits. Both my grandparents were dairy farmers, I knew what real milk tasted like as I grew up and how early farmers were up and "at ‘em".

I recently visited my parents for a lovely long weekend in June, and all those memories came rushing back as I went to pick two buckets of fresh strawberries the morning after arriving. The best thing about picking strawberries is eating every sixth berry or so. We gorged on those strawberries and ate them all in the next 4 days! We used them on cereal or with yogurt for breakfast, snacked on them, and made desserts out of them.

This simple activity of picking strawberries clarified for me the main reason we are putting our efforts this spring and summer into moving to a different community. It is possible to grow things in the high desert, but it is hard. There are no lush strawberry fields, no apple or peach orchards, or farm stands from local farmers, or CSA’s. Also, the organic produce if found is iffy. Did you know strawberries are in the top 10 fruits and vegetables that have the most pesticides in them? I believe in quality food and I need to be in an area where food is grown, harvested, and enjoyed, all locally.

The first dessert we made with our strawberries was this Cold Strawberry Pie. This pie is a favorite of my husbands. This is a Cooking Light recipe that I make almost every year, and you can find the recipe by clicking on the above Cold Strawberry Pie link.

I’ll leave you with the recipe for the second desert we made, of which I did not get a picture. This cake would be perfect for your Fourth of July celebration, it was very good and easy!

Frozen Strawberry Layer Cake

• 1 ½ pounds, hulled and sliced strawberries (about six cups)
• ½ cup sugar
• 2 T. lemon juice
• ½ t. salt
• 2 store bought angel food cakes cut into ¼ inch slices (the recipe called for one, but that would not have been enough for my layering!)
• 4 cups fat-free vanilla frozen yogurt or vanilla ice cream

 Directions

Strawberry sauce: combine strawberries through salt (I added a bit of orange rind and some almond extract at the end), stir until sugar melts and it comes to a simmer. Simmer 15 minutes, mashing about half the berries when done. Cool to room temperature.

In a 9” springform pan, layer 1/3 cake, ½ frozen yogurt, ½ strawberries. Layer again and top with final third of cake. Cover in plastic wrap and freeze at least 6 hours or up to 3 days. Let the cake stand at room temperature 5-10 minutes before unmolding.

Note: If you don’t have a spring form pan, an angel food pan would work. My Mom cut this recipe out of one of her WI papers, probably either the Manitowac Herald Times or Country Today.

The night before I picked strawberries it rained. The smell of that moist, sweet, warm strawberry field was intoxicating and full of smiles as I remembered my childhood, and particularly picking strawberries and then watching while my grandmother made strawberry jam. I knew how good that jam was going to taste in winter as I put, yet another, fresh picked strawberry in my own mouth.