I went strawberry picking yesterday; ended up with about 42 pounds of berries, so they’ll be a lot of strawberry recipes coming up. The thing with picking your own strawberries at the farm is that they are so fresh and unadulterated that you actually have to process them within a day or so. That means lots of jams, pie fillings and such. And this Charlotte cake. They are pretty to look at, but yes, a bit of a pain to cut as the second that you take off the ribbon, the lady fingers could fall off. Of well; still tastes great.
Desserts
Cranberries. So many people just associate cranberries with Thanksgiving and Christmas, but they really are a nice addition to almost any season. Take this tart. It’s loaded with peaches, that are just beginning to show up in the shops (though not locally; these are from Georgia. Local ones won’t be for a few months yet). The peaches as very sweet, and of course I added brown sugar to caramelize them. The cranberries, which I had in my freezer from last fall (you can find frozen cranberries in the shops all year though) add a nice “cut” to the sweetness. And even thought they are “fall like”, the flowers as a lattice does make this a summery pie. Yum.
Another weekend, another pie. In fact, I think that this is the third weekend out of five that I have made some variation on the theme. But I like blueberry pie, and so do a lot of my friends, and this one is again for a grilling dinner. I’ll probably be switching to strawberries here soon, anyway (but then back to blueberries when my favorite kind — Maine Wild Blueberries — are ripe later in the summer. In the meantime, here is this variation, which has a bit of tartness from the balsamic and a bit of sweet from the honey. Don’t be put off by the touch of pepper: you don’t actually taste it much but adds a nice little bit of depth of flavor.





