Weekend Bonus Recipe - Popovers Love Strawberries

CSA Share 6/19/2012

• 2 pints of Strawberries

Strawberries that you get from your CSA share or farmer's market aren't at all like the conventionally grown grocery store behemoths.  Where conventional strawberries were bred/developed specifically for their ability to withstand long-distance transportation, your friendly neighborhood farmer probably has chosen to grow strawberries with the most intense flavor.  Of course, this means they usually fall short in the shelf-life department, and before your next delivery arrives, they may already gone soft, developed spots, or even started to grow mold.  Like sweet corn, fresh local strawberries are meant to be eaten almost immediately.  While perfect on their own, here's a nice way to use up whatever is left in the little green pint on a lazy weekend between share deliveries.

Popovers Love Strawberries

• 1 &1/2 cups of all purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon of salt
• 3 eggs (the fresher and more local, the better - you want a good eggy flavor), well beaten.
• 1 1/2 cups of milk.
• Fresh, local strawberries, hulled but not sliced.
• 1-3 teaspoons of sugar.  If you have vanilla sugar or lavender sugar or some other special sugar, here is the place to use it.  Otherwise, regular granulated or Sugar in the Raw (TM) is fine.

Preheat your oven to bake 450.  Grease up a muffin tin.  Mix together the flour and salt in one mixing bowl; the eggs and milk in another.  Add both mixtures together and whisk until smooth.  Fill each well of the muffin tin 2/3 of the way.  Bake at 450 for 15 minutes, then lower the heat to 350 and bake for another 20 minutes.  While your popovers are baking, sort of mash the strawberries with a fork, and sprinkle with the sugar.  Let them sit while the popovers are baking.

To serve, open up a popover and spoon in some strawberry goodness, and eat just like that.