The CookingBites recipe challenge: strawberries

Morning Glory

Morning Glory

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Welcome to the CookingBites recipe challenge. The current challenge ingredient is strawberries and msmofet the judge. To enter, all you need to do is post a recipe* which uses strawberries (fresh, tinned, frozen or dried), tag it cookingbites recipe challenge and post a link to it in this thread. The winner becomes the judge for the next challenge. You may post up to 6 entries. Deadline: midnight (close of day) Friday 6th October UK time (GMT). Detailed challenge rules can be found here.

* recipes must be posted within the time frame of the challenge but could be recipes you have made in the past, so long as they haven't already been posted on the forum as a recipe thread.
 
How clever of you msmofet to choose an ingredient we haven't had before. Now in case anyone might thinking 'strawberries are a dessert item and I don't really make desserts', I thought I should state the obvious; that they can be used in savoury dishes too!

I'll certainly be thinking of some savoury entries (yes I'm one of those people who doesn't really do desserts or cakes) but I'm going to make a special effort to make something sweet too.
 
Ok, here’s my first one:

Recipe - Rumpot (Rumtopf)

We got this from some of the German founders of our former German heritage club. It was close to Christmas, we were at a monthly meeting, and they were all discussing their soon-to-be-opened rumpots, so I asked about it, and they were happy to share.

This is so closely identified with Christmas for us, that it’s really not Christmas without it - right up there with Christmas puds and delectable little cocktail meatballs, etc.

This is also loads of fun because it’s a project - you have to start it in June, and then tend to it each month up through November, adding fruit and sugar and more rum (as needed). It really helps get you into the spirit of the season early on.

You don’t need a special crock like I have; anything big enough with a good lid will work. You can also easily scale it up or down - just remember, it’s roughly half as much sugar as fruit.

Traditionally, you’re supposed to wait until the start of Advent to first sip it, but heathens that we are, we usually crack into it the weekend after Thanksgiving, though it sometimes lines up pretty closely.

The liquor is exquisite - wonderfully sweet and very boozy, like syrup for adults, and the fruit goes on so many things - pound cake, waffles, pancakes, roast chicken/turkey, venison, pheasant, on toast, over ice cream, or by the spoonful when no one is looking.

These pics are from last year’s, and we still have some left, so I didn’t make a pot this year:

Starting the rumpot

Starting the rumpot


Preserved rumpot fruit

Preserved rumpot fruit


Rumpot cordial

Rumpot cordial


It also makes a great gift. We have friends and family who ask for it now!
 
I’ve got three more picked out, but they’re all sweet, not savory (one is savory-ish, I suppose), but I’d like to find a proper savory one to round things out.
 
Nice ingredient. I wish this would have come up in June. Fresh strawberries are pretty much gone here until next June -- well, good fresh strawberries. What we have now are nice and red on the outside, and white on the inside. They have weak flavor, and are sour.

Soooo, I guess I'll have to go with frozen berries, if I think of something to make. That's okay.

CD
 
caseydog said:
Nice ingredient. I wish this would have come up in June. Fresh strawberries are pretty much gone here until next June
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Here’s the weird thing - I live right around the corner from a strawberry farm. It’s a big deal around here, very popular, they usually make the local news, family who owns it are well-known…this year, no strawberries.

They posted a couple of weeks into the season that the strawberries were struggling, then…nothing. Just went silent. No strawberries from them this year.

Then, on top of that, I was getting tomatoes at the organic farm around the other corner, and I asked when they’d be getting corn, and she said their corn never took off this year and they wouldn’t be selling any.
 
caseydog said:
That means three opportunities for me to get "Tastied." :facepalm:Why not PM me now, before I buy any ingredients.

CD
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I’ll tell everyone right here - it doesn’t have to be a secret.

I’m planning on a strawberry wine spritzer for my drink, a strawberry gratin, a dish of strawberries, madeira, and cream (popular in colonial times), and some pork chops served up with a strawberry-garlic sauce, and my coup de grace will be a very retro strawberry Jell-O salad, straight outta 1950’s suburbia. I’m really looking forward to that one.
 
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