Strawberries in October!

Remember the Strawberry Madness? From back in June when I was on modified bedrest and before I went on total bedrest? If you don't care to click, the short version is that back in June we bought a flat of strawberry seconds and, after making pie, we processed the remainder of the strawberries and a lot of rhubarb and stuck them in the freezer in packs the right size to make into pie.

Well right now, as I am typing this, there is a Strawberry Rhubarb Pie in my oven! In October!

I can't wait for dessert!

Chicken with Cherry Sauce, also, My husband, the cooking fiend

It's Cherry Season!!!

Last year at Cherry Season, my friend Maggie and I invented the Best Cherry Sauce Recipe There Ever Was. This year, I had to ask my husband to make it, based on some very nebulous directions that I had scribbled into my Livejournal. These included directions like "Add a whole lot of Five Spice." Well, he followed my crazy directions but then told me exactly what he did so that we can emulate it in the future. So today, I present Chicken with Cherry Sauce!

Chicken with Cherry Sauce

by Lynne Powell, Maggie Kolb, and formalized by Adam Terio

1 whole roasting chicken

olive oil, salt, pepper, garlic powder, paprika

1 cup sour cherries, pitted

1/2 cup sweet cherries, pitted

1/4 cup Smart Balance 

2t salt

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 of a bottle of red wine (estimate here)

1t five spice

1/2t black pepper

splash of apple juice

Coat chicken with olive oil and season with salt, pepper, garlic, paprika. Roast chicken. While chicken is roasting, start the sauce.

Saute sweet and sour cherries in Smart Balance. Add salt and sugar and continue to saute until cherries are coated. Add wine, five spice, black pepper, and a splash of apple juice. Bring to a boil and then reduce heat to medium-low. Smash cherries with a fork or potato masher and allow to continue reducing until chicken is ready to eat. 

We serve the chicken with the sauce on the side, as if you do have leftovers of both, they reheat better separately. This is traditionally (both times) served with cous cous and corn on the cob. 

In other news, my husband has been a cooking fiend today. He started out making breakfast burritos with eggs, cheese and chorizo. On our list of things to cook or prep are this fabulous dinner, a cherry pie (which he made, and we had for dessert), swiss chard empanadas, mint chocolate chip ice cream, and beer. And since I can't stand up, he has been doing everything himself! I did help pit the cherries because I could sit and do it in about 10 minutes now that we have a cherry pitter. I know it's a uni-tasker. But it's probably even more useful than my favorite gadget, the mango pitter, because cherry season lasts longer. 

So he's been cooking. The ice cream is cooling before we put it in the ice cream maker, the pie has been partially eaten, the dinner was demolished, and the water for the beer has been boiled. If we don't get to the empanadas, oh well, there's always tomorrow (it's more important that the beer get made actually, based on my due date!) When I met him, my husband knew how to make three things--Boboli pizza, chicken stir fry, and taco salad. (He claims he knew how to make other things but that's all we ever ate at his house unless I cooked!) So after today he has made a believer of me!! He even noticed that he had extra heavy cream from the ice cream, so he made whipped cream for the pie! I'm seriously impressed, and I love him dearly!

Strawberry Madness

Today was a day of strawberry madness.

Madness I say!

Yesterday, knowing that it was most likely the last week for strawberries at our farmer's market, we did a crazy thing--we bought a flat (8 quarts) of strawberry seconds, advertised as "for jam" along with 1/2 a flat (we shared a flat with a friend) of "firsts."

So today, the most important thing that had to happen was we had to process the seconds before they rotted away. I found an awesome recipe for strawberry rhubarb pie, so I started there. Oh yes, I bought 6 giant stalks of rhubarb too.

Here's the recipe: http://jas.familyfun.go.com/recipefinder/display?id=13663

I went though 2 quarts of strawberries, tossing the very bad ones, cutting out the bad parts of others, and simply de-stemming the rest. In the end I had the 4 cups of strawberries needed for my pie recipe. 2 stalks of rhubarb were cut up and added, and Pie was had. It was excellent. Oh and I used Pillsbury crust because I do not make pie crust under any circumstances. Not since the cherry pie incident of 1994. Just don't ask.

Once we decided that the pie was SO GOOD, we decided to put together freezer bags with strawberries and rhubarb, processed and ready to be made into pies! So Adam helped me because it is kind of dull work. We went through several more quarts of seconds and ended up with 2 freezer bags filled with sliced strawberries and rhubarb, for pies, and 2 smaller freezer bags filled with unsliced strawberries with no stems and bad parts cut out. We are going to thank ourselves later in the summer when we want strawberry pie and can have it! 

Meanwhile, there are 4 quarts of fresh delicious strawberries still in the fridge. These will become:

1) strawberry salad, of course

2) strawberry shortcake

3) (as my son would say): "strawberries in a bowl!"

Believe me, they will be eaten.