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Local Food Journey

Strawberry fields producing now

Posted by James Sechrengost on 06/21 at 07:29 AM

It’s getting to be that time of year. You know that time when you are out hiking and you’re keeping your eyes peeled for them, or waiting patiently at your local farmers market for them to arrive. It’s that time that strawberries can be found.

I love the taste of a large, sweet, succulent strawberry. When I was a kid there was a field near an abandoned farm that had some of the biggest strawberries growing around the perimeter of it. I always knew when it was strawberry season as my mother would start accompanying us kids on our little expeditions. Sometimes she would drop hints, like, “why don’t you kids go play up at the old tree house we had built.” She knew that we had to cross that field to get there. So as soon as we found our first ripe berry we would pick it and run it all the way home to give it to our mother like a knight bringing back the Holy Grail. We knew what it meant, too—hours of picking berries, carrying canning jars and such from the basement, and then getting “The Pot” down from the attic. My mother had this huge pressure cooker she used for all of her canning needs. I swear the thing came over on the Mayflower but she wouldn’t give it up for love or money. We also knew it meant strawberry pies, jams, cakes, salads, and, of course, our all-time favorite…ice cream!

Recipe

•6 tablespoons all-purpose flour

•3 cups sugar, divided 2 cups and 1 cup

•1 teaspoon salt

•6 eggs

•4 cups milk (I prefer the milk from Meyer Dairy as it just seems to give the ice cream a richer, creamier, texture)

•1-1/2 pints strawberries, hulled and halved. (I usually start with 2 pints but not all of them make it to the ice cream.)

•2 tablespoons lemon juice

•4 cups half-and-half cream

•2 tablespoons pure vanilla extract (not the imitation vanilla)

•Red food coloring (I put this here because some people prefer that their strawberry ice cream be a bright pink in color. Myself I am perfectly happy with the pale pink that just the strawberries give.)

Instructions

•Whisk together in a large, heavy pot 2 cups of the sugar, flour, and salt.

•Beat together the eggs and milk until well blended.

•Stir the egg mixture into the dry ingredients.

•Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until mixture thickens and coats a spoon (about 45 minutes). Do not boil. If you boil it, you cook it, and I’m sure none of you want a scrambled egg ice cream.

•Cover with plastic wrap.

•Allow to cool for at least two hours.

•Meanwhile, in a good sized bowl, and using a potato masher, crush berries with lemon juice and remaining sugar. You want a nice smooth texture, but, it doesn’t have to be perfect. Who doesn’t like a nice piece of strawberry?

•Let stand for 1 hour this allows the flavors to marry and the sugars to break down some.

•Pour cream, vanilla, food coloring, egg mixture and berry mixture into an ice cream freezer.

•Follow the directions that came with your ice cream freezer.

This will make about three quarts.

After the strawberries came the raspberries, then the blackberries, elderberries, peaches, and finally apples. Those adventures though, are for another time and another recipe.