The Casual Cook
Martha Strom

In spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love and a hungry cooks fancy eagerly turns to thoughts of strawberries.

In some parts of our country such as South Central Texas, where I happen to be at the moment, strawberry season is upon us. The Poteet, Texas Strawberry Festival is a great week end activity for local Texans. In the states farther north, where I'll be shortly, we can rely on California to supply us with wonderful, sweet, juicy strawberries until the local berries begin to appear. Not only are strawberries delicious but they're good for you. Eight strawberries can give you 160% of your daily requirement of vitamin C according to the local newspaper and eating eight strawberries is pretty darned easy to do.

Strawberries are wonderful for breakfast but for me they're even better in very simple desserts such as Sliced Strawberries and Cream topped with powdered sugar or Whole Strawberries with Sour Cream and Brown Sugar. Dip the whole berries in the sour cream and then in the brown sugar using their beautiful green stems as dipping handles. Strawberry Shortcake or Angel Food Strawberries Romanoff (in the Feb 2000 issue of Get Lost Magazine) are old favorites and always delicious.

STRAWBERRY SHORTCAKE

Strawberry Shortcake is SO good and if you have a good bakery close by you can buy excellent shortcake biscuits although making your own is quite easy. Make them from scratch or make them from your favorite biscuit mix. If you make - from scratch - biscuits and can find a product called Bakewell Cream, a leavening agent from Holden, Maine, you'll make truly outstanding biscuits. You can make ahead and freeze if you'd like. When you're ready to have shortcake just slice and mash the cleaned berries and sugar them about an hour ahead of time. Add one or two teaspoons of grated orange rind and a squeeze or two of lemon juice to enhance the flavor. Save a few whole berries to decorate the top with. At serving time split the slightly warm biscuits (some people like them buttered a bit), place them on individual serving plates. Put a generous amount of crushed berries on bottom layer of biscuit and replace the top. Put more crushed berries on top and finish the whole thing off with a generous dollop of whipped cream and one whole berry.

The Angelfood Strawberries Romanoff recipe (February 2000) calls for frozen strawberries. If you'd like to use fresh ones just slice them and sugar them and proceed.

In San Antonio, Texas there is one of the most wonderful markets I've ever been fortunate enough to be close to. I've mentioned it before--The Broadway Central Market. Its definitely worth seeking out if you're visiting San Antonio. Not only does it have the freshest produce from all over the world but the greatest variety of canned, bulk and packaged goods you could ever imagine. It's meat department is incomparable and its bakery truly wonderful. If you visit allow time to do it justice.

Broadway Central Market also has a great cooking school which I attend whenever I can. Here is a recipe from a recent class taught by their cooking school manager, Kathy Gottsacker, who is also a very talented instructor.

SWEET YOGURT CHEESE WITH MINTED STRAWBERRIES

1/3 cup water
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup fresh mint leaves
6 ounces cream cheese
1/2 cup plain yogurt (not nonfat)
2 Tbs. confectioners sugar
1/4 tsp. vanilla
10 large strawberries

Bring water and granulated sugar to a boil, stirring until sugar is dissolved, and stir in mint that has been chopped. Remove from heat and steep 10 minutes.

While mixture is steeping, beat cream cheese until fluffy and beat in yogurt, confectioners sugar, and vanilla. Chill yogurt cheese 15 minutes until thickened. Note: Use of nonfat yogurt requires longer time to thicken

Pour syrup through a sieve over berries in a bowl, pressing hard on mint, and chill 10 minutes.

Serve strawberries and syrup over a generous spoonful of yogurt cheese and an additional bit on top. Garnish with a sprig of mint.

Serves 4

Source Broadway Central Market Cooking School, San Antonio, Texas.

Martha Strom spends lots of time equating love and food. Check out the Eats archive for more edibles.

Another recipe from the Casual Cook:

Strawberry Cheese Pie