Quick strawberry soft ice cream

Don't spend your seasonal fruit on smoothies, use the frozen version of the fruit, Taty says. She means: eat the seasonal bounty without ado. I didn't have to feel guilty when on Sunday I threw frozen strawberries in the blender to make a frozen smoothie, a concoction resembling soft ice cream. Dairyless, but not vegan, on account of the bee pollen. And watch it, ice cold!

Quick strawberry soft ice cream

2 very ripe bananas
1 pack of frozen strawberries
1 tablespoon nut butter (hazelnut-peanut)
1 tablespoon sesame seeds
1 tablespoon bee pollen

Combine everything, blend, scoop, eat. Look ma, no sugar!

September begins...

September begins... with an interludium. We're taking a break from posting until mid month. We will not stop cooking and posting, but right now there are other things on our plate. See you soon!

Fresh berries in a tart

During more than seven days of blazing sun I checked them everyday by eating some. They were turning dark and big enough to let tartness become sweetness: the antioxidant bombs in my garden. I was nervous. I picked my first crop of berries. Would I be able to do the right thing to do these riches justice?

At Marmiton.org, in a Tarte aux cassis with a pâte brisée crust, the filling consisted of:

400 g berries
3 egg yolks
100 g sugar
25 g flour
and 200 g whipped cream.

Never one to obey, I turned the filling into this:

2 egg yolks
40 g ground almonds
78 g agave syrup
and 250 g white cottage cheese.
And I simply used more berries (560 g).
Fresh berries in a tart

Make the crust (250 g flour, 10 cl cold water, 125 g butter). Put it in the baking tin. Preheat oven at 180 °C.

Pick berries: yostaberry, black currant (cassis/ribes niger or nigrum), and red currant. Combine them with the ingredients serving as filling.

Bake for 35 minutes.

Mission accomplished: a filling that did justice. An extremely fresh, tart berry taste.

July brings...

I'm writing this after an evening of decadence and bliss in the same Cherry Garden where my sister and I recently collected some bounty. No camera, no company. Just me and the proverbial snake. Seven days of harsh sun had done wonders for the dark harvest on heavy boughs and branches. I picked. I ate until I couldn't see another cherry. The sun was setting in the distance between the trees; I hurdled a ladder and a laden box through tall nettled grass. Meanwhile, the ribes niger or nigrum in my garden is growing in that same good sun. July portends more fun with summer fruit.

Fresh fruit and connivance

"I ate the strawberries, sorry!"
At risk nowadays in kitchens are recently picked
cherries and berries.
One dictum applies: See Them, Eat Them.

Rhubarb-Strawberry Crumble

As to strawberries, I'm still sticking to the regimen of eating 500 g a day and plain (in Dutch: uit het vuistje). Exception: last night. I put 100 g of strawberries in a rhubarb crumble. Good call to add strawberries, as it turned out. The recipe from Taty is quite frugal.

Rhubarb-Strawberry Crumble

500g fruit: e.g. rhubarb and a handful of strawberries
100 g bread crumbs
100 g oat meal flakes
40 g butter
70 g unrefined sugar
125 g white cheese, cottage cheese or ricotta, drained
2 tablespoons ground nuts

Preheat the oven at180 °C.

Wash and cut the fruit, put it at the bottom of a buttered cake tin or tart form.

Mix bread crumbs, oat meal flakes with butter and sugar, until you reach the consistency of wet beach sand. Add the cottage cheese and the nuts. Put this mixture on top of the fruit.

Bake for 25 minutes.

Note: good, but on account of the bread crumbs a bit frugal. A random guinea pig liked it, but next time I'll add something else instead of the crumbs. I did add all the sugar (muscovado, from dried fruit) contrary to my wont, on account of the very sour rhubarb. Good idea to add (sweet) strawberries as extra natural sweetness.

Bounty

Solitary strawberry plant, in soil instead of in planter.
Election Day, June 13, 1.37 p.m.