Sunday, June 22, 2008

In Season

STRAWBERRIES!!!!!!

Last Thursday I happened to stop in at Allendale Farms, in Boston, Ma and they had just that day, gotten the first local strawberries.
I bought 4 quarts!

I used 2 to make strawberry jam, and the rest I saved to eat, and to use for strawberry shortcake for the Father's Day brunch I was going to. Yum.

The jam came out pretty good. I actually used my bread machine to make it; it has a jam cycle. All you do is prep your fruit, add it to the bread pan, add sugar and select the jam cycle. An hour later, you have jam, ready to go or ready to can.
I used 2 Ball jars, and one empty jar that I kept from my honeymoon in Italy. In Cinque Terre, or 5 Lands, in the Liguria region, I bought some local honey. I kept the jar, and decided to use it, since I couldn't find any other ball jars. Check out the pic:

Miele, means "honey" and Limone obviously translates to "lemon". Lemons are one of the fruits that are grown in Cinque Terre; this honey came from Monterosso al Mare, one of the 5 villages, and the one that we happened to stay in.
Man, I could ramble on about Cinque Terre, but I won't. All I can say is, go, you've got to go to experience it!

Here are the 3 finished jars:


Well, the strawberry love continued today at Wilson Farm in Lexington, Ma. This weekend marked their Strawberry Festival, so we took the kids.
It was fun. They had an activity tent for the kids where they could make strawberry tops and balloons. There were hay rides around the farm, and free tastes of strawberry soup, shortcake etc.

I bought another 3 quarts today (as well as some amazing shell peas).....maybe I'll make some strawberry ice cream.....hmmmm.....

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