Strawberry Spice Cakes

This is my variation on strawberry shortcakes, bursting with flavor. Instead of plain biscuit-type "cakes," I make mine as spiced muffins. Freshly picked ripe strawberries are naturally sweet, and are wonderfully accented with these ingredients. You can also make this recipe for spiced cakes as a sweet bread, and use slices for the final presentation:

INGREDIENTS
If an ingredient is in red type, look for details on my "Ingredients" page, linking from the top of any page in this blog.
 
For the Cakes (makes about 18 muffins or 6 muffins and 3 mini loaves):

2 eggs, beaten
1 c honey
1/2 c sorghum syrup or molasses
1/2 c coconut oil, warmed to liquid
1 can pumpkin puree (about 1-1/4 c)
2 c all purpose gluten free flour *
1/2 c sorghum flour
1 T chai spices or pumpkin pie spices
1 t baking soda
1/2 t salt
1 c chopped fresh strawberries
(* If not concerned with making this dessert gluten-free, use 2-1/2c white wheat flour in place of the two gluten-free flours in my recipe.)

Cream:
Whipped Coconut Cream (see the recipe here)

Topping:
3 c sliced fresh strawberries
1 t ground cinnamon
2 t lemon juice
sweetener to taste

DIRECTIONS (for 4):
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease large muffin tins or mini bread pans. Mix eggs, honey, sorghum, coconut oil and pumpkin puree well. Separately mix the flours, spices, baking soda and salt. Stir the chopped strawberries into the dry mix to coat them. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and stir until well mixed. Spoon into the muffin cups, filling them just half way. Bake for 30 minutes for muffins or 50 minutes for mini bread loaves. Remove to a rack and cool.

Mix the sliced strawberries with the cinnamon and lemon juice. If they need sweetening, I use my own homemade vanilla/stevia extract. Alternately, sweeten with a little local honey. Cover and refrigerate until ready to serve, and the berries will release juices.

Mix the coconut cream topping, and refrigerate until ready to serve.

Just as delicious on slices of spiced bread

To serve, split 4 muffins in half (top and bottom) and place them open in an individual serving bowl. I switch the order of the toppings from a conventional strawberry shortcake: top muffin halves with a big dollop of cream, then spoon the strawberries on top, with all their sweet juices, flavoring the cream and the cake. This tastes just as scrumptious on a slice of the spiced bread - for breakfast, dessert or anytime snack.


P.S. Thanks to my special friend Sandra for my lovely personalized dish cloth; she is an extraordinary quilter and master of machine embroidery, as you can see.

Strawberries and Garlic

Don't worry, this isn't a post with a recipe using those two ingredients. It's a gardening update!

This has been a great year for growing strawberries in my edible front yard garden. The bounty I picked this morning is shown in the photo. Do you grow strawberries? If not, you should. They grow from Florida (February harvest time) to New Hampshire (July harvests) as perennials. Here in Tennessee, the month of May is my banner season for these juicy sweet berries.

My second favorite berry to grow, strawberries take just a bit more care than my favorite, blueberries. I find the biggest challenge is to keep the beds from getting too crowded with all the "baby" plants which the mature strawberry plants send out to root. When the weather is not too rainy, as has been the case here recently, the berries ripen without getting moldy or soft or dirty.

Here are ten of the many reasons I love growing my own strawberries:

1. freshly picked strawberries have much more flavor than store-bought
2. when you grow your own, you can wait to harvest them when they are fully ripened on the plants; those you buy are usually harvest a bit early, before the full flavor develops
3. they are great to eat plain, added to fruit or veggie salads, topped with Greek yogurt, chopped and added to breakfast granola, chopped and used over a pie crust with a cream filling OR on shortcakes and topped with whipped cream (I did a variation on brownies last week), baked into quick bread, muffins, or pie.
4. strawberries freeze well (wash, dry, and remove the stem end), either whole or sliced
5. frozen or fresh strawberries are delicious in smoothies
6. harvesting is spread over several weeks, so it's not overwhelming
7. new baby plants are constantly produced, so you can start new beds, and - after a few years - replace the mature plants… free!
8. non-organic commercially grown strawberries are highly likely to have pesticide residue (strawberries are the most chemically intensive crop grown in California) 
9. in my garden, organically grown strawberry plants are not prone to diseases or insect infestations
10. nutritionally, strawberries have high levels of antioxidants, fiber, vitamins

There's nothing quite like biting into a just-picked bright red strawberry still warm from the sun! By the way, if you live near me or will be visiting and you want to start your own strawberry patch, please let me know and I'll share my plants with you - that's the fun of gardening! Plant some between now and fall, and you can start harvesting some next spring.

And from the garlic patch….

My fall planting of garlic cloves has resulted in a patch of greenery. Plants of the hardneck varieties are sending up the tall, curled garlic "scape." Gourmet cooks cut off this top stem when it first begins to grow and is most tender, adding it to stir-fries and other dishes for garlic flavor with a unique decorative touch. Some garlic growers cut the scape off, so the plant will put its energy into the root. I love to cut them and use 3 or 5 in a flower arrangement, adding an unusual accent. Others use the scape as a ripeness indicator - when it unfurls and stands up straight, the garlic is said to be ready to harvest. Left on the plant, the scape will mature to form small garlic bulbs. These can be dried and planted, but will take more than a year to grow into a whole clove. My garlic is generally ready to harvest in June-July. Good thing, because I am nearly out of all the garlic I dried, froze, and otherwise preserved from last year's harvest. Garlic is even easier to grow than strawberries, so find a garden patch and plan to plant garlic this fall.

By the way, sorry for my lack of posts recently on this blog. My "day job" (commercial artist/designer) has been keeping me so busy, along with my many other interests and pursuits. I hardly have time to garden or cook, not to mention writing about it!

Valentine Chocolate Strawberry Bread

I bought a flat (12 pints) of fresh Florida strawberries and it inspired me to invent this recipe as a special Valentine breakfast bread. If you like dark chocolate, try this yummy, moist recipe, as quick bread or muffins.

• 1-3/4 c flour
• 1/2 c unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 t ground cinnamon
• 2 t baking powder
• 1/2 t salt
• 1 c fresh strawberries, chopped into small pieces
• 1/2 c chopped nuts
• 1 c plain yogurt
• 1 t baking soda
• 1 egg
• 1/2 c oil
• 1 t vanilla extract
• 1/2 c honey

Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease 3 mini loaf pans or a muffin tin for 1 dozen. Mix the first 5 dry ingredients in a large bowl. Stir in the berries and nuts to coat. In another bowl, stir yogurt and baking soda together and set aside - it will get foamy. In a third bowl, beat the egg and add the oil, vanilla, and honey. Fold together ingredients from all 3 bowls just until thoroughly mixed. Spoon mixture into prepared pans. Bake for 25-30 minutes.

November in the Veggie Garden

Goodness... November is nearly over, and I haven't done my garden post. Life has been busy, even with my gardening work greatly reduced. My November garden looks empty, compared with previous months, but there's actually lots growing now. This autumn's weather has been the nicest in the seven years I've lived in East Tennessee. The first light frost didn't hit my garden until Nov. 10th, with a heavy frost one week later… late for our zone. Day length is short, but the leaves are off the trees so the garden gets lots of warmth from the sun. The warm weather crops have been dug up and added to the compost bin, and I've covered tender plants when the temps dipped below 32. I'm not certain about  some new things I've planted surviving the cold, but they will be on their own from now on, I'm not going to bother covering them any more. Here are the details:

1. BEETS - The chioggia heirloom beets went to seed and replanted themselves, so I"ve been harvesting both the roots and the greens continually. The heirloom "bull's blood" beets which I planted from seeds didn't germinate real well, but I have about a dozen plants growing so I've been harvesting the leaves for salads. I'd like to let them reseed, but I'll need to be sure both varieties don't flower simultaneously or I won't get new plants true to the parent.
2. LEMON GRASS - I moved the biggest clump of lemon grass to this part of the garden, and I also planted a clump in my "surplus garden" where I can let it grow without restriction. I am not certain it is winter-hardy here, so I've also taken a pot inside and it's growing well enough for me to harvest leaves occasionally… this way I'll have some to replant outside in spring if necessary.
3. STRAWBERRIES - The main strawberry bed is still looking very healthy, and I bought some half-price Halloween straw to nestle around the plants, protecting them better from the winter cold. I loved my strawberries, and I want to be sure they produce next spring!
4. CALENDULA - Also known as "pot marigold", the pretty yellow and orange flowers of the calendula are medicinal as well as edible. My summer plants bloomed profusely and I must have been neglectful in removing spent blooms, since I discovered many seedlings at the end of the summer. I organized them in a small patch, surprised that they would grow in fall. Mother Nature has her own tools for keeping growth to specific seasons; some seeds can lay on the ground for months, needing the freezing and thawing process to prepare them for warm weather growth. I had thought of calendula as a summer plant, like french marigolds, but this self-seeding might prove me wrong. In the meantime, I have some color in the garden, and I can harvest the petals, extract their vital components in oil, and create some nice salves and lotions with the filtered oil.
5. BRUSSELS SPROUTS - The four seedlings planted a few months ago all have formed lovely little brussels sprouts at the intersections of the main stem and each leaf. A little cold is supposed to "sweeten" them, so I am anxious for harvesting soon! The plants I started from seed are still alive, but only a few inches tall, so I should have started them much earlier… next year I'll know better.
6. ROMAINE - All the lettuce I started from seed is doing well, although everything grows much more slowly this time of year. Our occasional salads have been wonderful. Most recently I mixed lettuce greens, the dark red bull's blood beet leaves, the last tomato which ripened on the kitchen window sill, the last of the sweet green/red peppers, some crunchy sliced raw jerusalem artichokes, and fresh sprouts (alfalfa, clover, broccoli) grown in a jar indoors. Topped with my homemade Olive Garden style dressing it was a great meal. Lettuces can generally withstand temperatures as low as the mid 20's. I've also planted some in the cold frame, along with a few bull's blood beets, spinach and parsley.
7. KALE - I haven't witnessed a return of the "woodchuck" type critter spotted eating my sweet potato vines in October, but something ate the gorgeous curly leaves off my kale plants. To protect them from further damage, I have covered them with the collapsable net hampers which I used last summer to ward off fleas from my eggplants. So far it's working, and I just pull up the stakes to harvest leaves.
8. SPINACH - I love spinach, and I've now got it growing well in many areas of the garden, some still too small to show up well in this photo. This is one plant I know grows continually all winter, although slowly, and then takes off fast once the days lengthen in February. Yum!
9. PARSLEY - The curly and flat leaf parsley will likely grow all winter too, and since the onions have strong green tops I can harvest and I still have mint in the herb garden I plan to try using dehydrated tomatoes to make some taboulli.

OTHER GARDEN NOTES:
SWEET POTATOES - I had only planted half as many sweet potato hills as last year, since I was overloaded, but my harvest this year was very disappointing. I am blaming it on the grasshoppers, zapping the energy from the plants to grow more leaves instead of roots.

WINTERING OVER PLANTS - Where I have empty space in the vegetable garden, I have submerged some potted outdoor plants in the soil. Plants in pots are more susceptible to freezing, but burying them gives added protection. I've done this with a lilac bush I had rooted during the summer as well as with some chrysanthemums. By spring the temperatures will be warm enough for me to dig them up and plant them in permanent locations.

HORSERADISH - Two years ago I bought a big ugly horseradish root from the supermarket and planted it in the veggie garden. It grew! Beware: it can be very invasive. So this spring I replanted the major root elsewhere, where it can flourish, and I kept digging up all the little volunteers which popped up. It grew vigorously all summer and I've dug up some roots recently. I'll do a later blog post on how I've preserved some of this spicy condiment.

HERBS - Many of my herbs, besides the parsley and fennel still growing in the vegetable garden, can be continue to be harvested, such as mints, thyme, rosemary, and lemon balm. I discovered a few years ago that cilantro is a cold-weather plant, when I found it had reseeded and was growing strong in the fall. So this year I planted cilantro seeds directly in the veggie garden. They are very slow to germinate, but I have a two foot bed of seedlings growing now. I'd rather have it when the tomatoes are ripe, to use in fresh salsa, but I have other recipes for which there is no substitute for the taste of cilantro.

June in the Vegetable Garden

June has seen many changes to the vegetable garden. We've had about 1" of rain in the last week, after nearly 8 weeks of dry hot weather. I resorted to watering with the sprinkler, which you can see outside the corner of the garden. On the longest day of the year, June 21st, our area officially got 12 hours and 34 minutes of daylight, with sunset at 8:56pm. Here's the garden update:

1. SWEET POTATOES - I planted 11 sweet potato plants, half as many as last year: two which I grew from last year's potatoes (my other efforts failed) and a 9-pack of "slips" I bought,  all "Beauregard," a dependable variety for our area, and the most common supermarket sweet potato variety. I planted where the edible pea pods had been, after they had stopped producing in late May. About 2 weeks ago I noticed the sweet potato leaves were being eaten, and, when I sprayed my Garlic Barrier on them, I saw grasshoppers jumping away. I've never had a grasshopper problem, but I've heard they can devour the garden. In addition to spraying, I've also been scattering cut-up garlic greens around the plants and this seems to have solved the problem.
2. EGGPLANTS - I bought 2 mesh laundry hampers and turned them upside down over the wire cage on each eggplant to help protect the plants from the bug which eats the young tender leaves. I used wicket-type garden stakes to hold the handles of the hampers in the soil. It's helping so far. I'll have to remove the coverings when the plants flower, so the bees can pollinate. As the season progresses last year, the bugs became less of a problem and the plants flourished, so perhaps I can go into flowering with healthier plants this year. These laundry hampers do not have netting on the top, but rain or sprinkler spray gets in on all sides. They fold down flat for easy storage too.
3. JALAPENO - I kept one jalapeno plant in the red Kozy Koat and it already has pods! Couldn't resist planting a second seedling I had started, but there is a noticeable difference in the size of the two plants.
4. MELON - One "casaba" melon is growing well and has a green fruit about 6" big already. I keep checking the plant for insects which attack squash family plants (see photo and zucchini info).
5. LEEKS - Most of the transplanted leeks didn't survive, but I'll still have plenty. Don't think I'll try them again though.
6. CUCUMBERS - My attempt to grow the cucumber plants in vertical cages is going well. They send out tendrils, and I usually just have to coax them to grab and wrap around the cage wire. The fruit is clean and perfectly shaped. I've been picking both varieties, one pickling size and the other a 6-8" salad cucumber. I keep watching the undersides of the leaves for the brown eggs of the squash bug (see photo), and discard any leaves with eggs.
7. TOMATOES - The photo shows the growth of the tomato plants in the past month, but I nearly lost them to an attack by big fat healthy tomato hornworms. The earliest plant I had put in the garden, which had looked gorgeously healthy just one day earlier, was totally defoliated. The other 5 plants each has one or more worms eating away. Fortunately, I caught them right away (it pays to visit your garden daily) and successfully treated with "Dipel," an organic biological insecticide for leaf-eating worms and caterpillars ("bacillus thuringiensis"). I dug up the defoliated tomato and replaced it with one of 3 cherry tomato plants a friend gave me, which I had planted in the cold frame. I've also kept the bottom 10" of the tomato plants trimmed to the center stem, which seems to be helping me avoid tomato blight, which is a fungus spread from the soil to the lower leaves. When I see a leaf with yellow spotting I immediately pick it off and discard. With all this effort, I've now been picking juicy red tomatoes for 3 weeks from the Riessentraube and the Al Kuffa heirloom varieties. I'm keeping a close eye out for pests.
8. BEANS - My favorite variety of green beans is Blue Lake. I plant the "bush" version vs. "pole" beans, which grow only about 12" tall and don't need trellising. Blue Lake tastes great and freezes well. I planted marigolds around the beans and keep breaking up the spent marigold flower heads on top of the bean plants, to deter an invisible insect which eats holes in the bean leaves, and potentially, in the beans. L:sat year the bugs ruined my crop. I've picked just a couple of ripe beans in the last couple of days and eaten them raw, and I'll have lots to harvest for dinner starting in a few days. I've also started a small bed of Golden Wax bush beans and a long bean from Thailand.
9. GARLIC - Before we got last week's rain I harvested about 2 dozen garlic heads. Garlic is ready to dig up when the green tops turn tan and dry. It's best to dig them when they are not wet. I rinsed them off right away, which is not recommended, but our clay soil is either like peanut butter when wet or like concrete when dry. Then I dried them in the sun for a few hot dry days before moving them onto newspapers in the shade of the porch to dry for a few weeks. This prepares them for storing.

Also in the garden...

CARROTS - I've finally been harvesting carrots and they are delicious. I like that it's a crop I can leave in the ground, just pulling what I want to use immediately. I've decided I have the patience to grow them, and I've continued to do more plantings from seeds.

BEETS - We ate beet greens initially, and now I've been roasting the pink and white zebra striped Chioggia beets. I'm proud to say I successfully grew them from seeds I harvested from my own plants in their 2nd year. The size of the beet root seems more dependent upon how much room you allow between plants than on how long they are in the ground.

ZUCCHINI - Pulled up the one zucchini plant which had quickly gone from lush and healthy to wilted and sickly. I think it suffered from a squash vine borer. I'll try another plant again in July.

BRUSSELS SPROUTS - I also had to dig up the brussels sprouts. Just as the little Barbie-doll size cabbages began to form on the stem, the leaves unfolded immediately. This is due to our hot weather. I'll try growing it again in the fall, which is what is recommended for my zone.

LETTUCE - We ate the last of the romaine and Little Gem Lettuce. So far I haven't been able to get any of my heat-tolerant varieties of lettuce to germinate well. :-(

BASIL - With lots of pesto still in the freezer from last year, I only put in 4 Thai basil plants, which have a really strong flavor. This way I have some to pick fresh, which I love in a Salad Caprese, with tomatoes and mozzarella.

FENNEL - I moved small fennel plants which had over-wintered and now they are flowering. I will save the seeds which follow the flower, a licorice taste used in Italian cooking, and I've been slicing up the stems and adding to roasting vegetables.

PARSLEY - Both curly and flatleaf parsley plants I started from seed are growing well. This week I picked lots and made tabouli, and I'll share my recipe on this blog soon.

POPPIES - In another garden bed I am growing "Breadseed Poppies" and the flower is an old-fashioned purple shade. I grow red poppies and the seeds they produce are tiny, so I am hopeful that this variety will be larger and suitable for me to use in cooking.

GARDEN HUCKLEBERRIES - My two garden huckleberry plants have suffered from bug-eaten leaves since I first set the seedlings out, but this hasn't hampered the production of flowers and berries. I picked a cup full one day recently, put them in a saucepan with a small amount of honey and some cornstarch dissolved in blueberry juice, to thicken as it cooked. I mixed the cooled sauce into plain yogurt and it tasted great. The raw berries sort of taste like blueberries but with a slightly bitter bite, but were great when cooked.

STRAWBERRIES - My strawberries ended production in late May, and I dug up approximately 12 dozen plants from the big mass I had left to grow at the west end of the strawberry border. I am trying to keep the baby plants clipped off the established bed, but will allow some to root later in the summer for more friends who want to start their own bed. Let me know if you want any.
I removed the coldframe covers, and the frame itself is permanently attached to the garden corner. Two little cherry tomato plants are all that is growing inside now.

Happy gardening!

Cool Strawberry Cream Pie

It's been in the 90s all week... the perfect time for a no-bake pie made from freshly picked strawberries. You can short-cut this recipe by using a purchased graham cracker crust and topping my cream filling with your favorite strawberry jam. But I'll guarantee my made-from-scratch version is luscious! My short-cut is to use the food processor for each of the three layers.

CRUST:
2 c granola*
2 T softened butter or coconut oil

CREAM FILLING:
8 oz Neufchatel cheese (or cream cheese), softened
1/2 c cottage cheese or plain yogurt
2 T lemon juice
1 t grated dried orange peel
2 T honey

FRUIT TOPPING:
3 c fresh cleaned and hulled strawberries
10 drops liquid stevia (or other sweetener)
1/2 t ground cinnamon
1/3 c fruit juice
1 t agar agar flakes** (or 1 T corn starch or arrowroot)

Whirl the granola into fine crumbs in a food processor and mix well with the butter or oil. Press the mixture into the bottom and sides of a 9" pie plate.

Rinse the food processor and mix all the cream filling ingredients until smooth. Dump the filling into prepared pie shell, spreading to the top of the granola crumbs and smoothing the top flat. No one will ever guess that cottage cheese is used in this delicious slightly sweet filling!

Rinse out the food processor and chop the strawberries by pulsing a just a few times - don't over process or you'll end up with a wet puree. Put the chopped berries in a bowl and add the stevia (or your choice of sweetener) and cinnamon. If the berries have shed a lot of juice, pour this off into a measuring cup; otherwise use 100% fruit juice, like blueberry or grape juice, and heat 1/3 cup to boiling. Stir in agar agar flakes and simmer 5-10 minutes until the mixture thickens. Add this to the strawberries and mix well. Let this mixture cool. Spoon the strawberry mixture over the cream filling, and refrigerate for at least one hour before serving.

This recipe will work well with other fresh fruit, like blueberries, blackberries, peaches, and others. Try fresh red raspberries with a chocolate cookie crust - yum!

* See this blog for my recipe for homemade granola, or use your favorite purchased mixture

** Agar agar flakes are a thickener, much like unflavored gelatin, derived from a sea weed. It is commonly sold in health food stores. Alternately, you can thicken the juice with cornstarch, used in the same way as the agar agar flakes.

Strawberry Time

'Haven't posted since before the tornado hit our place two weeks ago today… much of my normally busy discretionary time has been reassigned to clean-up after about 200 old hardwoods and pines were twisted, broken, uprooted, bent and downed by the winds.

In more pleasant news, my gardens miraculously escaped harm, and continue to flourish - despite my lack of attention. I've been picking my own delicious big sweet strawberries steadily for the past 3 weeks, a "June-bearing" variety called Tennessee Beauty. The bed I had started two years ago got wiped out by a fungus which I think formed because I had attempted to cut down on weeding by mulching the bed with black landscape fabric, covered with straw. At one end of the black mulch, lots of strawberry baby plants escaped the bed and planted themselves in my bare garden soil, and these survived. I let them grow and prosper, and then harvested lots of rooted babies in the fall. These allowed me to replant the original beds, adding compost to the soil, spacing plants about 12" apart in staggered rows, and not using any mulch. When the flowers began to turn into berries earlier this spring, I put a thin layer of straw around each plant, to keep the ripening berries from sitting in the dirt… makes them nice and clean when picked. I plan to remove the straw after the harvest. Incidentally, note that I said straw, not hay - straw is supposed to be without seeds, while hay will fill your soil with weeds from its seeds. I'll be doing more weeding this year, but hopefully will avoid the fungus problem.

The 4' x 4' bed of "baby" strawberry plants was a thick mass of plants, but I decided to leave it until it finishes bearing fruit this spring. From my side-by-side comparison, I am now convinced that strawberries should be kept in manicured beds, removing the babies, and keeping them spaced out. I've observed the following:

• the neat bed ripens earlier (more sunshine?)
• the neat bed is easier to harvest - vs. hunting among tangled leaves and stems to uncover ripe berries
• the neat bed honestly produces sweeter tasting berries 
• the neat bed produces much fewer berries which show critter damage
• we've had relatively dry weather during this harvest time, but I think the mass bed would have had more berries rot from moisture than the neat bed if it had been damp

I've also learned how wonderful it is to pick strawberries from my own gardens rather than go to a u-pick strawberry farm. I know mine are organic, I can pick at my convenience, and my harvest is stretched out over many weeks rather than dealing with 3 gallons all at once. On four separate days I have filled the gallon bucket, with lots of smaller harvests in between. We've been eating loads of fresh strawberries: in a salad with my homemade raspberry vinaigrette and feta cheese, chopped and mixed into yogurt or a smoothie, sitting on our breakfast granola, or just "naked," still warm from the sun. I also substituted strawberries for the cranberries in my pumpkin bread recipe, and it now ranks as one of my favorite breakfast breads ever. I have frozen 12 bags of chopped strawberries, and just finished making 8 half-pints of strawberry jam. The strawberry season is winding down, but we'll be enjoying the harvest for months.