Tasty Tuesday – It’s Strawberry Time!

Welcome to June!  To me, June is strawberry time.  It is when I see lots and lots of quarts of strawberries for sale along the backroads of Amish Country.  Over Memorial Day weekend, we camped up there (as you can see, it was chilly that afternoon)

and picked up a couple quarts of berries.

This past Saturday, we ran up for the afternoon, since we didn’t get a chance to grab a homemade strawberry shortcake from one of the Amish stands we like to stop at.  So we grabbed our strawberry shortcake there as well as hubby’s homemade rootbeer he likes and a jar of canned pears and a jar of bread & butter pickles.  Now mind you, that was our almost to last stop – should have been our only stop except lunch.  LOL  Our first stop was Quarryville Family Restaurant for a late lunch (yummy, yummy yummy!!), then we swung into the campground for a quick stop, and the Amish family that sells baked goods was in there, so we grabbed four quarts of strawberries, a small strawberry pie, a whoopie pie, four cinnamon sticks, molasses cookies, and chocolate chip cookies.  And then we headed to the strawberry shortcake stop.  Then we ran up to our favorite Amish bakestand to see if they had any blueberry bread left.  We have a couple people in our church that just love it, and I thought it would be nice a surprise for them on Sunday.  Nope, none left, so we bought a strawberry rhubarb pie and raisin sticky buns instead and visited with Joe for a few minutes.  After there, we stopped off at one more little Amish farm for two more quarts of strawberries, asparagus, and some perennials.  We bought some perennials from them over Memorial Day weekend, and we wanted to grab a few more.  Definitely the way to buy perennials – so much cheaper than going to a greenhouse.  Five dollars for three large size perennials ready for planting – you can’t beat that!  So by this time, the back of my truck was filled with fruit, baked goods, and flowers.  And boy did the strawberries smell good!  And before heading out of Quarryville, we ran into Maplehofe Dairy, so hubby could get his peanut butter ice cream for the ride home.  That’s where we picked up the orange cream milk.  Haven’t tried it yet though.

On the way home, I called Mom and Dad and said we were coming with the strawberry motherload of desserts.  Perfect timing since it was just past dinnertime, and I knew Dad would not turn away strawberry anything.  Everything was yummy, and they have the leftovers of the pie and cake to enjoy this week as well as a quart of strawberries, asparagus, chocolate chip cookies, and raisin sticky buns.

So now that I’ve gone a little off track, I’ll jump back on track and head to our Tasty Tuesday recipe.  For the month of June, I’m going to have strawberry recipes hopefully each week.  This week’s recipe is for a yummy Strawberry Cake.  I found this recipe in the “Seasoned with Love” cookbook.  It’s easy to make and uses some staples found in your pantry.

Strawberry Cake, Jolaine Martin, “Seasoned with Love” page 313

1 box yellow or white cake mix

1 (3.4 oz.) box strawberry Jello

3 T. flour

1/2 c. oil

1/4 c. water

Approx. 1 pt. frozen strawberries

4 eggs

1 tsp. vanilla

Frosting:

1 lb. 10X sugar

1 tsp. vanilla

Mash strawberries and add the rest of the ingredients.  Bake at 350 degrees for 35 to 45 minutes in a greased 9×13″ pan.  When cool, frost with frosting.

I used fresh strawberries, of course, for my cake, and it turned out just fine.  One thing I like about this cake is that it is not sugary sweet.  I did use sugar free strawberry Jello to help cut the sweetness too.

I brought the cake into work yesterday to celebrate the birth of my boss’ first granddaughter.  I told him it’s close enough to pink.  Any excuse for baked goods in the office is a good one, but having his first granddaughter born ranked pretty high up there.

Also in our Saturday journeys, we saw a very decorated Amish buggy in front of us.  Usually you don’t see “bumper stickers” on the back of a buggy.  But when you do, you are usually guaranteed it’s a teenager or young adult driving it.

Before church yesterday morning, this is what I was doing – I was in Tasty Tuesday and dinner planning mode for the upcoming week…

I had four cookbooks open to recipes to try as well as my shopping list.  I think I have my strawberry recipes planned out for the next couple weeks.  Our neighbors will be enjoying some yummy strawberry stuff this week.

Hope you enjoy your first week of June.  Lots of graduations occurring as well as last days of school.  Have a great week!

Blessings…