(photo by Suzanne Temple - June 2007)
Here are a few ways that I use strawberries... (I can hardly wait for the season to start here! :D )
Strawberry coulis - pronounced cool-ee (Strawberry sauce)
1 cup simple syrup (see recipe to follow)
4 cups cleaned and trimmed strawberries - roughly chopped
Juice of 1/2 lemon
Prepare simple syrup as per recipe and heat 1 cup of the simple syrup. Add the strawberries and the juice of the 1/2 lemon. Simmer for 5-10 minutes on medium heat, or until the strawberries can easily be crushed. Blend the mixture and place in a jar and reserve in the refrigerator for up to a week. Or you can even place the cooled sauce in a re-sealable bag (like Ziplock) and freeze.
This sauce can be used to top ice-cream, decorate a dessert plate, or as a sauce for a pound cake. You can double the recipe easily enough, place in a lasagna pan, and place in the freezer. Stir with a fork every 30 minutes for 6+ hours to make a nice strawberry sorbet. Once the sorbet is made, it only needs to be stirred once or twice a day.
Simple syrup:
Equal parts water & sugar ( 1 cup : 1 cup, 2:2...)
Stir the sugar and water together in a small saucepan. Heat over medium heat until the mixture starts to boil lightly. Let boil 1 minute. Cool and use to sweeten homemade lemonade or to create a simple fruit sauce, or even to create a lovely granité or sorbet.
Returning to strawberries...
Strawberry rumpot (most certainly not for kids...)
Equal weight sugar and clean/trimmed/blemish free berries
Enough rum to cover
Cut the fruit into small bits. Cover with the sugar and stir. Put in a jar and cover with rum. Store in the refrigerator for a minimum of a month. Use the "juice" as a lovely hard sauce for ice cream, pound cake or other such dessert - you can use the fruit too, but I find that they become little hard. Sometimes I like to take just a small bit as a dessert drink. Yummy! :D This is a traditional way to preserve fruits for the holidays, and as you use the rumpot you can top it off with new fruit that's in season, sugar and rum. This can last a very long time. Keep out of reach of children for obvious reasons.
WARNING: Rumpot has a very strong kick to it - I suspect that it has a higher alcohol content than the rum on its own - so use with care!
Be sure to check out The Virtual Kitchen on June 27th to read up on more great strawberry recipes! :D
