Strawberry Crumble

This Spring/Summer we've been craving strawberry rhubarb pie. Unfortunately after numerous attempts from different bake shops we have been somewhat disappointed. This past Sunday at the farmer's market we remedied the situation with a purchase of strawberries. We got four pints.

Our first pastry attempt was to use the remaining sheet of puff pastry in the freezer and make strawberry turnovers. I chopped some berries, added a bit of honey and vanilla and stuffed them in. The filling wasn't exactly right, but it was a fun way to enjoy the fruits.

Then I got around to the real goal of the berries, a crumble. I love crumble and it can be fairly healthy. I dug up the recipe I had used in the past for other fruits, and then free styled the filling.

The filling:
~20oz. cut strawberries (I made different sizes for texture.)
splash of vanilla extract (probably 1/4 teaspoon)
three splashes of OJ (probably three tablespoons+)

The crumble:
1/2 cup AP flour
1/2 cup WW flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup chopped pecans
1/2 cup rolled oats
6 tbl spoons butter

No pics of the finished product because we dug into it too quickly. It came out darn near perfect. But interestingly enough, while I enjoy my baked goods straight from the oven, crumble is best if the crumble itself has time to cool and set for more crunch. I'm thinking of attempting to make this vegan with coconut oil, but that will have to wait until after the next farmer's market visit.

Garden Report

I harvested the garlic the other day. I was hoping for a higher yield, but no such luck. At least I got 20 heads even if they are on the small side. I'll have to look into why the garlic doesn't grow as large as I would like. The first year we grew garlic, it was decent size and we didn't have to buy garlic for two months. I doubt this harvest will get us a month without buying garlic, but we'll see.

I transplanted some beans to the garden hoping they are too big for the cutworms. So far it looks like they have gone untouched. Unfortunately I will not be having a good year for beans because of the cutworm problem. Now it is probably too late in the season to hunt cutworms in the middle of the night. I have to transplant some broccoli to the garden as well. These sprouts are smaller than the beans and another favorite of the cutworm. Hopefully they will survive too.

I pulled the spinach from the garden as it all bolted. We're left with collards as the only leafy green, and they are slowly getting eaten by aphids (and starting to bolt.)