Recipe Roundup - Strawberry Season!

IT’S STRAWBERRY SEASON IN TENNESSEE! People (including me, I am people) go nuts for fresh strawberries! I can’t decide if it’s because we are all so starved for fresh produce and fresh sunshine by this time of year or because they are just that good!

We started slowly picking a few buckets a day about a week ago and are now picking daily, and selling out before lunch! I can’t confirm or deny that we have probably eaten a good 3-4 gallons ourselves already :)

I will find any excuse to add strawberries to a recipe. Basically I’m like Bubba Gump, just with strawberries not shrimp. 

There’s strawberry jam, strawberry freezer jam, strawberry pie, strawberry french toast, strawberry ice cream, strawberry cobbler, strawberry bruschetta...the possibilities are endless really.  And to be honest I’ve also eaten probably at least a gallon just plain, which I blame mostly on the two farmer’s daughters currently in my belly.

 My absolute favorite thing to make with fresh berries is jam. Once you make jam with fresh strawberries, be prepared to ruin your tastebuds on store bought for forever. Every year, I make twice as much jam as the year before. And every year, we are scraping the bottom of jars come spring because we’re running out!

Honestly, I think the best recipe comes straight off the pamphlet in the pectin box. I’ve used both the freezer and cooked jam recipes and never had any issues (they also don’t call for lemon juice which I am not a fan of in my jam). Every time I stray from this recipe, I regret it and go right back!

Note: this picture is from last year. My nails do not currently look like this - anyone else ready for nail salons to open back up?!

They also make great Mother’s Day gifts - tie a ribbon on it and immediately elevate yourself to favorite child status :)

While we use the jam all year long, the first thing I crave, and the first thing I make every year is a strawberry pie!

A store bought pie crust, some fresh berries, and less than 4 ingredients I already have on hand? Sign me up! I generally use a recipe similar to THIS ONE, simple and easy. And if I have cream cheese on hand, I spread some on the bottom of the crust before I fill it. The star of the show are the strawberries and whipped cream, so the cream cheese is really just an extra, not a necessity!

Next up is strawberry ice cream! Other than Blue Bell, store bought ice cream just doesn’t do it for me. I think the only time we buy it is if Blue Bell comes out with a seasonal flavor, or if we’re putting it on cobbler. But homemade ice cream is always amazing! It must be because it’s such a labor of love, and not something easily thrown together!

My mom got us the ice cream maker attachment for our Kitchen Aid mixer at one of my bridal showers but I haven’t really used it much until this year. And now I’ve used it twice in a week! (DISCLAIMER: don’t make your husband and father in law homemade ice cream unless you are prepared to make it all the time…and on short notice…lesson learned).

I use a basic vanilla ice cream recipe and then toss about 1-2 cups of strawberries in during the last few minutes. Note: if you are using the same Kitchen Aid attachment, half your recipe, even if you use one straight out of the manual, or it will be so full it’ll go everywhere. Learned that one the hard way…

Here’s my mixture - it makes right at about a quart!

1 1/4 cups half and half

4 egg yolks

1/2 cup sugar

1 1/4 cups heavy whipping cream

2 teaspoons vanilla

dash salt

1 cup strawberries (halved and tossed in a spoonful of sugar)

I’d recommend following the recipe and instructions for your specific ice cream maker. And if you have Kitchen Aid, but don’t have THIS ice cream maker attachment, put it on your Christmas list ASAP! And if you’re a man, buy it for your wife for Mother’s Day, it’ll be a gift to yourself too!!

Next up is Strawberry Cakey Cobbler. The moment I opened up this month’s Southern Living and saw this recipe I knew I had to make it. We are serious about cobbler in this house, we even had it (and banana pudding which we are equally serious about) instead of cake at our wedding. Tyler prefers a mushier cobbler, I like a crisp cobbler. This one is more like if a cake and a cobbler had a baby…which is probably why they named it Cakey Cobbler! I made it last night and served it with the strawberry ice cream above. It was DELICIOUS! Tyler has asked me approximately six times in the last 24 hours if I’m going to post it. Recipe can be found HERE. Just make it, you won’t regret it.

Now that we’ve covered all the desserts, one of my favorite combinations is strawberries + basil. It sounds like an odd combination, but just trust me. If I was able to drink right now, I would definitely be making THESE Strawberry Basil Margaritas. I’ve made them before for parties and to take to the lake and they are crazy good!

Also on the list of things I can’t have right now is goat cheese…and I LOVE goat cheese. Not as much as cobbler and banana pudding, but pretty darn close. This recipe is from one of the first food bloggers I ever followed, and it combines strawberries + basil + goat cheese (can I get an Amen?!). Make this Strawberry Bruschetta and have some for me too!

So just in case you got your hands on some local strawberries, now you have plenty of recipes to keep you busy! We are picking daily now, so watch our Facebook page for updates!

And if you make strawberry basil margaritas, have one for me!