Berries mean spring is near

We can’t com­plain about our win­ter weather so far. It’s been a mild one. But I know we will get some snow even if we don’t want it. I can only hope for an early spring. That would be nice.

I am going to put some berry recipes in this col­umn. I found some good ones for straw­ber­ries that I know you will like. When it does warm up, we’ll be pick­ing all sorts of berries. When I was still work­ing, two male cus­tomers both said they love elder­berry pie. I offered to make each of them one, if they brought me the berries to make two. One after­noon, here comes one of the men in my driveway.

When he came to the door he had a large white bucket full of elder­ber­ries. I told him that I would call him when I got the pies made. I decided to clean the berries and take them off the stems. I thought I would never get those tiny stems off the berries. I had to put some on a flat din­ner plate, so I could see to get all the stems off. They were quite tiny. When I made the pies, I was hop­ing I got all the stems. Both of the men said the pies were good and they didn’t find any stems. This was the first time I ever made an elder­berry pie. I love the jam. My mom made it all the time.

We would go out to Irish’s Sheep Farm on Griggs Road to hunt and pick berries. They had elder­berry, rasp­berry, and black­berry bushes. I don’t think my mom ever bought a jar of jam or jelly from the store. She even baked her own bread. There’s noth­ing bet­ter than a freshly made loaf of hot bread. I would cut off one of the ends and put real but­ter and home­made jam on it. Sure makes my mouth water now just think­ing about it.

I’ll even put some home­made jelly and jams in my future columns. They are so easy to make. I even found a pep­per jelly recipe. My son, Philip, hasn’t been down to Ken­tucky in a cou­ple of years. When he went down there, they would send him home with boxes of dif­fer­ent jel­lies and jams they would make. I sure do miss them.

If you ever want to hunt for wild straw­ber­ries, your best place is to hunt by the rail­road tracks. When I was a young child, we would go from the Mag­yar Street rail­road to the foundry area to look for them. The fields around there would be full of straw­ber­ries. I think they tasted sweeter than the home­grown ones. I don’t know if you would find any now since they spray weed killer around that area now.

I have lots of rasp­berry and blue­berry recipes I’ll put in my next col­umn. In my future columns, I’ll be putting dif­fer­ent meat recipes for you to share, since most men like meat and pota­toes only. My dad cer­tainly was that way. We had meat and pota­toes at every sup­per at our house. We ate at the same time. Lots of fam­i­lies nowa­days don’t have nightly fam­ily din­ners. Either one of the kids are at some kind of sports prac­tice, and so forth. Par­ents are work­ing dif­fer­ent shifts. Most moth­ers or wives didn’t work back in those days when I was a kid. Those were the “good ol’ days.”

Until next time, please enjoy these recipes.

Straw­berry Gra­ham Dessert

1 cup gra­ham cracker crumbs

2 tbsps. but­ter or mar­garine, melted

1 pkg. (3 oz.) straw­berry gelatin

1 cup boil­ing water

1 pkg. (16 oz.) frozen, sweet­ened, sliced straw­ber­ries, thawed

1 tbs.. lemon juice

4 oz. cream cheese, softened

1/2 cup con­fec­tion­ers’ sugar

1 tsp. vanilla extract

Dash salt

1 cup whip­ping cream, whipped

Fresh straw­ber­ries and mint, optional

In a small bowl, com­bine cracker crumbs and but­ter; set aside 1 tbs.. for top­ping. Press the remain­ing crumbs mix­ture onto the bot­tom of a greased 8-inch square bak­ing dish. Bake at 325 degrees for 10 to 14 min­utes or until golden brown. Cool on a wire rack. In a bowl, dis­solve gelatin in boil­ing water; stir in straw­ber­ries and lemon juice. Refrig­er­ate until par­tially set, about 1-1/2 hours. In a small bowl, beat the cream cheese, sugar, vanilla, and salt until smooth. Fold in whipped cream. Spread half over cooled crust. Cover and refrig­er­ate remain­ing cream mix­ture. Pour gelatin mix­ture over fill­ing; refrig­er­ate until firm. Top with remain­ing cream mix­ture. Sprin­kle with remain­ing crumb mix­ture. Refrig­er­ate overnight. Gar­nish with straw­ber­ries and mint, if desire. Yield: 9 servings.

Peanut But­ter Berry Delights

1/2 cup creamy peanut but­ter (reduced-fat or generic brands are not recommended)

5 tbsps. milk choco­late chips, melted and cooled

2 tbsps. whipped topping

20-25 large fresh strawberries

5 squares (1 oz. each) semi­sweet choco­late, melted

Line a bak­ing sheet with waxed paper; set aside. In a small bowl, com­bine the peanut but­ter, melted choco­late, and whipped top­ping. Begin­ning at the right of the stem, cut each straw­berry in half, diag­o­nally. Scoop out the white por­tion from the larger half of each berry. Spread or pipe peanut but­ter mix­ture between the two halves; press gen­tly. Place on waxed paper, refrig­er­ate for 15 min­utes or until set. Dip bot­tom half of berry in choco­late. Place on pan. Refrig­er­ate for 15 to 20 min­utes or until set. Yield: 20-25 servings.

Straw­berry Rhubarb Jam

2-1/2 cups fresh or frozen straw­ber­ries, crushed

1-1/2 cups finely diced fresh or frozen rhubarb

2-1/2 cups sugar

1 can (8 oz.) crushed pineap­ple, undrained

1 pkg. (3 oz.) straw­berry gelatin

In a large ket­tle, com­bine straw­ber­ries, rhubarb, sugar, and pineap­ple. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and sim­mer for 20 min­utes. Remove from the heat; stir in gelatin until dis­solved. Pour into jars or freezer con­tain­ers, leav­ing 1/2-inch head­space. Cool. Top with lids. Refrig­er­ate or freeze. Yield: 5-1/2 cups.

Straw­berry Spinach Salad

2 bunches fresh spinach, washed and dried

1 pint fresh straw­ber­ries, hulled and sliced

1/2 cup sugar

2 tbsps. sesame seeds

1 tbs.. poppy seeds

1-1/2 tsp. finely chopped onion

1/4 tsp. Worces­ter­shire sauce

1/4 tsp. paprika

1/2 cup veg­etable oil

1/4 cup cider vinegar

Arrange spinach and straw­ber­ries on indi­vid­ual salad plates or in a large salad bowl. Place the next six ingre­di­ents in a blender or food proces­sor. With unit run­ning, add oil and vine­gar in a steady stream. Blend until thick­ened. Driz­zle over salad; serve imme­di­ately. Yield: 6 to 8 servings.

Posted by Kathleen Willbond on Mar 22 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.