Jam Session

Monday night, Zach and I made two batches of strawberry freezer jam. Zach helped during commercial breaks of 24. We used exactly all of the good berries we had not eaten. Tuesday we were at the park when the groundskeeper told me there were tons of strawberries we could have for free. I went and picked myself enough berries to make two more batches of that amazing strawberry jam.

My only regret is that I have been eating store bought jam all these years. It was way easier than I expected and I got to make it just like I wanted it. For example, I like smooth texture. No pulp in my orange juice please. And I don't like strawberry chunks in my jam, so I pureed it all, even though the recipe said not to. The jam didn't mind.

Friends, go out and make yourselves some freezer jam, you will not be sorry. It will inspire you to make home made bread and fruity oatmeal bars. You'll make enough for a year and devour it all this month. All you need is strawberries, fruit pectin, lemon juice and sugar. Lots of sugar. How can you go wrong?

Fresh Strawberry Ice Cream a la North Carolina

This one's kind of an original. In other words, I didn't read the recipe before hand so I didn't have all the ingredients that I needed Sunday afternoon. So I had to improvise.

Ingredients:

4 cups milk
1 cup sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla

1 cup whipping cream
1 can sweetened condensed milk

4 cups fresh strawberries, washed and hulled

With ingredients like this, how could you go wrong?

Directions:

In a large bowl, mix milk, sugar, vanilla, whipping cream and sweetened condensed milk. Puree the strawberries in a blender and add to milk mixture. Freeze in that ice cream maker you got for your wedding and hardly ever use (aren't you glad you didn't re-gift that?) according to manufacturer's instructions. Unless you have my ice cream maker. Then go ahead and double the time recommended by the manufacturer. Pour ice cream into a freezer-safe container and freeze for four hours. Yummmmmm.

Strawberry love

On Saturday morning the Webb residence was on fire. We felt ready to accomplish anything. I got my haircut at 8 am. Zach went golfing at 9. I finished making for a bridal shower gift for my sister-in-law to-be while the boys napped. At noon, Zach got back, we woke the boys and fed them lunch, then took them to Bernie's Berries.

It was a strawberry heaven. The boys ate anything red that they could get their hands on. I think that also may have included some green stuff, and probably lots of dirt, but they were happy. We picked eight pounds of strawberrys. Eight pounds! They were so beautiful, we just couldn't help it.

We came home covered in berry juice and threw some of the strawberries into a giant fruit salad. Then we headed off to a good old southern pig pickin' hosted by some good friends. MMM The barbeque was delicious. Our fruit salad was gobbled up immediately. We headed home when it started to rain and the boys went to sleep happily, something they just don't do lately.

Sunday morning Zach made us some amazing strawberry crepes. After church, we realized that our remaining six pounds of berries needed to be dealt with, post haste. I whipped up some amazing fresh strawberry ice cream, which I ate for lunch and dinner. Happy Mother's Day to me! I'll share the recipe later this week, because it was super good. Today, I'll be making jam with the remaining ten pounds. These berries are multiplying I tell you!

Warning: Oreo Truffles may induce sugar coma

Easy Oreo Truffles

This recipe is EASY and really delicious, but beware. I have a high tolerance for sugar, but I had to send Zach to the store for more milk to wash these babies down!

1 pkg. OREOs, finely crushed
1/2 tsp. vanilla
1 pkg. (8 oz.) Cream Cheese, softened
1 pkg. Chocolate chips

MIX 3 cups of the cookie crumbs, vanilla and the cream cheese until well blended. Shape into 42 (1-inch) balls.
DIP balls in melted chocolate; place on waxed paper-covered baking sheet. Sprinkle with remaining cookie crumbs.
REFRIGERATE 1 hour or until firm. Store any leftover truffles in tightly covered container in refrigerator.

I forgot to reserve the cookie crumbs, so my truffles got chocolate sprinkles instead. Yum.

Inspiration

I was so inspired by Holly's new years resolution to create a signature dessert. It reminded me of Stephanie P's adorable dessert cookbook she made, and I wanted to make one myself. But making a book is hard. Making a blog is easy. So I'm going to try making a new dessert each week and share the recipe on my blog. Keep your eye out for a weekly (or monthly, or annual) installment of quelque chose delicieux. And if you want to share recipes (Aunt Jen) I'd love that too!