I waited for the light, it was  red.

And then it was Red AND Green!!

That was the least of my concerns that day.

I headed out past Welches store. There's a sign, you just can't see it under the vines now. It says Welches store. It really does.

A little bit  after the burned down house I make a turn at a sorta Y in the road.

It started out like a class IV road and then it got worse and worse.

After  I started thinking about how there's no cell service out here and tried to imagine myself backing all the way out -what if I've gone down the wrong road?
I saw the driveway.
I wish I hadn't
It's a driveway from a bad dream.

 I got out and locked the hubs in.

And shift down to 4 low. If I'm going to make it up this is the only way.

 I started up and all I can see is my hood. Well a little bit of my hood.

And it just got steeper

 and steeper. Now all I can see is tree tops! There's a ditch on the right somewhere!

 I look to be sure I'm in 4 low. I am. I'm not really spinning I'm just going up real slowly.

 And then it flattens out, relatively speaking anyway.

I think I will join the flat earth society!

And  I'll never have to go up here again
Actually I did  quite a few times.

         Don't try this at home.

This is my favorite strawberry recipe!




 if you follow the recipe you only need to put 1/4 cup of sugar in but if you are not paying attention like me throw in a half cup! What was I thinking?

I like the measurements on the butter wrapper.

A pinch of baking soda

cut butter into flour sugar and baking soda. 

Stop when it's the size of small peas and pour into the pan.

 While the pie shell is baking mix sour cream

 The egg yolk

vanilla 

and mix it together. I didn't have any lemon zest so I didn't use any.

I used some sugar and some maple syrup because I like maple syrup. 

 I like the swirly pattern it makes when I mix it in. Actually i just like maple syrup.

Pour it into the shell and bake 10 more minutes. 

 Let it cool. or refrigerate overnight.

 The glaze, use some jam, any jam or jelly. i used strawberry jam.

 add a little water or some juice from sliced strawberries waiting for another project.

Cut the tops off the berries flat so they'll stand up.

 Arrange them on the top of the custard

and spoon the glaze over the berries.

 So they shine and look beautiful.

 Now excuse me,

I'm going to eat some strawberry tart



 It was that good!
 I think I just died and went straight to strawberry heaven.

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar, divided
• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/3 cup butter, cut into tablespoon-size slices
• 1 egg yolk
• 1 cup sour cream
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1 quart large ripe whole strawberries, hulled strawberries (if necessary to wash them, do so very quickly, and drain on rack)
• Pinch of freshly-grated lemon zest (rind)
• Fruit Glaze (see recipe below)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
Combine flour, 1/4 cup sugar, and baking powder. Add butter by tablespoons and cut in with pastry cutter until butter is incorporated and mixture is reduced to small crumbs (butter pieces the size of small peas is fine).
Pour crumb mixture into a 9-inch pan. Press crumbs gently over the bottom and half-way up sides of pan, approximately 1/8-inch thick. Do not pack mixture down too firmly. Bake for 10 minutes.
While crust is baking, combine egg yolks, sour cream, remaining 1/4 cup sugar, vanilla extract, and lemon zest.
Remove baked crust from oven and immediately pour sour cream mixture into the hot crust. Return to oven for 10 minutes. Remove from oven, let cool, and then refrigerator until serving time.
When ready to serve, arrange whole strawberries on top of the custard. Lightly brush the strawberries with the Fruit Glaze.

Fruit Glaze:

• 2 tablespoons apricot jam or red currant jelly (or use jam or jelly of your choice)
• 2 tablespoons water

In a small saucepan over medium heat, stir together the jelly and water until syrupy. remove from heat and let cool.

Drop what ever you're doing it's strawberry picking time! Bring you mother, mother-in-law, kids, someone else's kids, call in sick, whatever you have to do to pick your own strawberries. You'll thank me later.

 The plants are covered in berries.

Beautiful big berries.

Every row, it's just impossible to know where to start.

I filled my pails without trying. This is the way strawberry picking was meant to be.

Look at this one! I think this is the most perfect berry ever!
     Most perfect,
     Hmm, does that mean it's perfecter?

Only one way to find out
Oh, you have to check because it would be so terrible if you picked a bunch of bad tasting berries.
But not to fear, this berry was outstanding!

Then this little guy waved to me! He reached his little mitten out from under a strawberry leaf and waved.
I waved my ghost white hand back at him.
No I didn't, I picked it and put it in the bucket.

These may never make it to Strawberry Magazine's 50 most beautiful Berries of the year but don't over look them the flavor in the twisted misshapen berries is often much better than the bigger berries.

I wore a red shirt just in case I accidentally got berry juice on myself, I don't know how that might happen but I wore it anyway.


And now, A very good problem what make with strawberries...

I’m trying out Windows live writer, somebody said it was waay better for blog posting. So I’m trying it. Anyone else have any opinion on WLW? What about pork and apple pie?
Yeah, ok, I’ll get back to the project in the kitchen

Chop the cabbage,

Celery and carrots 

and don’t spend too much time thinking about WindowsLiveWriter.

Cook pork until brown –10 minutes.

Remove and set aside.


Add onion, cabbage, carrots, celery, apple. toss to coat.

Pour in orange juice and bring to a boil over high heat, stirring constantly. Return the pork and bacon to skillet and remove from heat.

Preheat oven to 350
Spoon mixture into pie shell.

Take extra pie dough and make your own leaves with the back of a butter knife.

for the top around the slashes you make for the steam to escape.


Insert something through a steam vent in the crust and pierce a piece of pork to see if it’s tender, longer, covering the crust with aluminum foil if it’s over browning.

Pork and apple pie
Ingredients

• 1 9” pie crust
• 3 slices of cooked bacon diced
• 12 oz. boneless pork shoulder, cut into 3/4” cubes
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 large onion chopped
• 1/4 cabbage chopped
• 2 carrots sliced
• 2 stalk of celery chopped
• 1 Gala apple peeled , cored, and cut into 1/2” cubes
• 1 tablespoon all purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon each dried sage and rosemary crumbled
• 1 cup orange juice
• 1 teaspoon pepper

Cook pork until brown –10 minutes. Remove and set aside.
Add onion, cabbage, carrots, celery, apple. toss to coat. Stir in the flour, sage rosemary, pepper and salt. Pour in orange juice and bring to a boil over high heat, stirring constantly. Return the pork and bacon to skillet and remove from heat.
Preheat oven to 350
Spoon mixture into pie shell. Take extra pie dough and make your own leaves for the top around the slashes you make for the steam to escape.
Bake pie, uncovered, for 1 hour 20 minutes.  pierce a piece of pork to see if it’s tender, if not bake the pie longer.

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