"fruit"

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The Letter S

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Pardon me while I get sappy.

You see, this week I've also been recovering from a medical issue. It's made me tired, shaky, and mopey. So this afternoon, after I put some tomato sauce in a slow oven to come together, I took a nap. Wrapped in the arms of my husband. It was the best nap ever.

So tonight's dinner was spaghetti and meatballs, and for dessert, strawberry ice cream. More specifically, strawberry sour cream ice cream. It was the slightly more elegant version of Baba's berries and cream. It was all comfort food.

The ice cream recipe comes from, who else? David Lebovitz. All the recipes in my books were custards and I didn't have many eggs in the house. So a little search led to many, many descriptions of this ice cream from The Perfect Scoop. It seemed like fate considering the pounds of strawberries I bought at the market and my own need for comfort. 

But no amount of comfort food can replace the love of your best friend.



Strawberry Sour Cream Ice Cream
(With great thanks, perhaps literally as I don't actually own The Perfect Scoop, to David Lebovitz.)

1 pound strawberries
3/4 cup sugar
1 tbsp vodka
1 cup sour cream
1 cup heavy cream
1/2 tsp lemon juice

1. Rinse, hull, and quarter your strawberries. Toss with the sugar and vodka. Let sit for an hour or so.
2. Add in sour cream, cream, and lemon juice. Blitz with a hand blender, leaving it as chunky as you want.
3. Chill for an hour. Process with ice cream maker. Freeze until ready to eat.

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Season by Season

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It's been a rough, rough couple of weeks in the Arkison household. Give us a few more weeks and we should be back on track.

This week, however, as been for snuggles, rest, and comfort. But a family can't live on ice cream alone. Is there any other summer comfort food? The other day I was desperate for a peach, I wanted the juice to drip off my chin and the scent to tickle my nose with summer pleasure. Of course, that might have had something to do with the fact that we were driving through Peachland on our way home from a funeral.

In sharing with a friend she mentioned that the only way to get through times like this is day by day, then season by season. As a food obsessed kind of gal, seasons are a strong marker in our lives. We eat by the seasons, therefore we live by the seasons. And I'm someone who is hard pressed to actually pick a favourite season (although I usually answer winter, when asked.) So as we recover from the latest round of flurries to the solar plexus I sought comfort in summer.

This is my Baba's raspberries and cream. Smilosaurus called it ice cream and The Monster declared she didn't like it. To me it was my Baba's old people smelling hug in a stifling house, arms covered in scratches from the raspberry canes. It was the weeks in the summer we were sent to Saskatchewan, which we hated at the time, but now I cherish. It was family, it was generations, it was summer treats.

Oddly, I used frozen raspberries for this. It was what I had. And, to be honest, it was what we usually used if it wasn't that exact berry season.  Strawberries work equally well. If you are using frozen berries, thaw first and drain off excess juice. Baba usually used regular white sugar, but I like mine with brown for that punch of extra flavour.

Berries and Cream

Equal parts mashed berries and sour cream or farm cream
Sugar to taste.

1. Stir together. Eat. Be comforted.
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Cross Country Preserving

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It was supposed to be a vacation. Hubby and I travelled, sans kids, to Ontario this past weekend. We attended the wedding of a very special friend in a ridiculously gorgeous location. The weekend also afforded us the time to take leisurely drives, naps, and meals.

I promised myself that I wouldn't worry about capturing every little food related tidbit along the way. A difficult thing when you spend 3 days in the Niagara Greenbelt. So, my camera hardly came out of the bag, I didn't take a single note, and I even left both my laptop and crackberry at home. This girl needed a vacation from it all - kids, the full time job, the part time job, cooking, cleaning, and simply doing for everyone else but me.

So I read a novel, I ate more than I should have, I slept at many points in the day, I cuddled with my Hubby, and even took a spontaneous helicopter ride over Niagara Falls. It is, however, impossible for me to resist a farm stand. Especially a farm stand that declares the sale of sour cherries.

Remember, it was only last year that I discovered the truth about sour cherries. And I only found them that one time. I promised myself that if I ever discovered them again I would buy in bulk and preserve the bounty.

So I made Hubby reverse the rental car in someone's driveway and pull out his cash. After our day trip the cherries were carefully stored in the hotel mini bar. Then packed in a plastic bin, surrounded by gifted books and craft paper. The bin was taped up and made the journey back West in the cargo hold of the Airbus 320.

When we finally arrived home last night I pulled them out and despite my desire to sleep I spent an hour and a half pitting cherries. But when I make that first cherry pie the effort will be worth it. Sadly, the journey resulted in more than a few casualties. But I still got 11 cups of cherries, enough for 2 quart jars and 2 250 mL jars. I figure that is at least 3 whole pies or more than a small army's supply of cherry hand pies.

Cherry Pie Filling
Makes 1 quart

4-5 cups pitted sour cherries
1/3 cup water
1/2 cup sugar
3 tbsps cornstarch

1. Clean and sterilize jar and lid - if you intend to can and not use right away. Keep hot
2. Bring water and sugar to a boil.  Add cherries all at once and let cook for 5 minutes.
3. Combine cornstarch and a few tablespoons of the liquid from cooking cherries. Stir until smooth. Add to cherries and return to the boil. Let boil 30 seconds.
4. Immediately pour into the hot jar. Seal with clean and sterilized lid. 
5. Process for 30 minutes in a boiling water canner.

* Scale up this recipe depending on your total amount of sour pitted cherries.