strawberries

B and I have started our second year of our Fresh Fork CSA and we’ve been having a blast each week with our new bags – we already roasted our first chicken (ok, well B roasted it), cooked up our turtle beans, and enjoyed our chorizo with an amazing fajita salad. In fact, the one thing we still hadn’t really touched this week were the strawberries we got as a bonus. I noticed they were starting to go bad, and while I would’ve loved to eat a pint of fresh stories in a day by myself, I didn’t know if my stomach would appreciate it. So, I scoured the web and my cookbooks for some strawberry dessert recipes.

I didn’t want to make a cobbler or a pie. I do like cobblers and pies – but not as much as I like breads and cookies. So I was pleased when I came upon this recipe from one of my favorite blogs, Sally’s Baking Addiction. I made only the most minor tweaks and am so pleased with how the recipe came out. The next time you have extra strawberries laying around – or just want a new bread/muffin to make, try this out! It’s a perfect summer recipe.

strawberry bread - i crashed the web

Strawberry Bread

Here’s what you need:

4 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 large eggs
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup light or dark brown sugar
2 cups buttermilk (I have dry buttermilk on hand – this was 8 TBS + 2 c water)
2/3 cup canola oil
1 Tablespoon vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups fresh strawberries, hopped, and tossed in 2 Tablespoon of flour and 1 Tablespoon sugar

Here’s what you do:

Preheat oven to 350F degrees. Spray 2 8 1/2 x 4 1/2 loaf pans with nonstick cooking spray.
In a large bowl, toss the flour, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon together until combined and set aside.
In a medium bowl, mix the eggs and sugars together until combined. Add in buttermilk, oil, and vanilla.
Slowly pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and gently combine until there are no more lumps. Do NOT overmix, this results in a tough bread. Fold in the strawberries.
Pour batter into bread pans. Bake the bread for 50 minutes to 1 hour or until a toothpick poked into the center of the bread comes out clean. Allow bread to cool completely.
Batter can also be made into 24 muffins; bake muffins for 15-18 minutes at 350 also.

strawberry muffins - i crashed the web

Some questions for you:

Do you participate in a CSA? Or buy your produce, etc. locally?
What’s your favorite strawberry-themed food? Is it a pie or cobbler or ice cream?
Favorite muffin or bread? Zucchini bread – love my mom’s recipe.
Muffins or bread? Usually bread- like banana bread or zucchini bread. But muffins help with portion control – and sharing!

Week Four of Fresh Fork was the first week that did not include any meat. I know, right – that meant tons of even more great greens and other veggies. And cheese! OH cheese. How do I love thee. Anyway, I digress. We picked up Week Four and were greeted with the following:

everything from our bag (minus the camera-shy cherries)

Week 4:

1 dz eggs
1 head large stem bok choy
1 head red leaf lettuce
1 head baby bok choy
1 6 oz piece Charloe cheese
1 lb bag snow peas
1 head broccoli
1 lb sweet cherries
1 bunch beets with tops
1 bunch spinach
2 ct zucchini
1 quart strawberries

This week did the following:

Bok choy, baby bok choy, snow peas, broccoli: I made an awesome Asian-inspired stir fry. I had never cooked with bok choy before but was excited to stir fry it with some of the other veggies we had. I’m pretty pleased with the results and am sharing the recipe below.
Eggs: Breakfast and baking! I just made some awesome peanut butter cookies that are also blog-worthy.
Lettuce: Salads for lunch.
Cherries: SO delicious! B isn’t usually a cherry fan and they are not typically my fruit of choice but they were so delicious. I’m sad they are gone.
Strawberries: These were pretty ripe when we got them and I knew we wouldn’t be able to finish them AND the cherries right away so I froze them. Can’t wait to decide what to do with those!
Spinach: sauteed in a little olive oil and garlic and enjoyed for breakfast with my eggs.
Zucchini: TBD. I was going to roast them like last week but haven’t had time – I may just blend them up and save for future zucchini bread baking.
fresh fork week 4 prepared

Yup. That’s it. Nothing else to report on. What’s that? You notice I missed the beets and you’re you’re dying to know how I prepared them? Don’t worry, I’ll feature them on an upcoming meatless Monday post. And let you know what to do if you also spill them all over your white dress. Not like that has ever happened to me.

asian inspired bok choy stir fry with baby bok choy sugar snap peas and broccoli

Asian-Inspired Bok Choy Stir Fry

Here’s what you need:

1 Tablespoon olive oil (you may need a little more if you have a ton of bok choy like I did)
2 cloves garlic, finely diced
1 Tbs powdered ginger (you could use fresh ginger but I didn’t have any so the spice from my spice rack had to do)
2 large bunches of chopped fresh bok choy – I used all the bok choy we had which was a LOT. One huge bunch bok choy plus a bunch of baby bok choy
1 c chopped broccoli
1 c snow peas
2-3 Tablespoons reduced-sodium soy sauce
Sriracha to taste

Here’s what you do:

Chop up bok choy. Not sure how to do this? This is a pretty good video to show you how.
Heat oil in a large skillet over medium heat.
Add garlic and cook for about 1 minute.
Add broccoli and snow peas and cook 2-3 minutes.
Add bok choy, soy sauce and ginger powder. Bok choy cooks up pretty fast, so keep an eye on it. Recipes I had said it could be done in as little as 5 minutes, but since I had SO much in the pan it took me more like 10 minutes. The bok choy is done when the green parts are dark green and wilted and the stalks are crispy but tender and flavorful.
Add sriracha to taste. I like mine spicy so I added a good drizzle over the top.