Tag: berry

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Can the Can

By Fran Hill

I grew up with a tube of Ocean Spray jellied cranberry sauce on the Thanksgiving (and Christmas) tables. I loved its tart vibrancy, and still do.

When I married, I was disappointed to not find cranberries of any kind on my in-laws’ holiday table. A few years into our marriage when I shared a Cranberry Cake with Warm Butter Sauce, it became clear that cranberries were not my father-in-law’s favorite when he complimented the cake by saying,”That sauce kinda kills the taste of the cranberries.”

It didn’t occur to me that someone might not like the brisk bite of cranberries. To me, they are a given part of the fall and winter season. There is a thrill of excitement when I first see them appear at the grocery store, and I always pick up a few extra bags to toss into the freezer.

Admittedly, I wasn’t a fan of the first homemade cranberries I encountered. A friend’s mom had made a relish with ground raw cranberries, citrus, nuts, and if memory serves me correctly, onion. It was, to be polite, pungent for my inexperienced palate, and I have since steered clear of cranberry relishes.

However, even though I love the canned delight of Ocean Spray, I couldn’t resist the lure of homemade cranberry sauce. Preparing it is so much like the simple jams and jellies I create all canning season, minus the tedious cauldron of boiling water to process and seal the jars. Combine berries, a little orange juice, wine, sugar and just a shake of cinnamon in a pot to simmer. That’s it. So simple. So good. Don’t tell the turkey, but homemade cranberry sauce could easily be the jewel of the holiday meal.

Homemade Cranberry Sauce

1 bag (12 ounces) fresh cranberries

3/4 cup sugar

1 cup orange juice

1 cup white wine (something sweet, like a Riesling, works, but I have used Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Grigio, as well)

zest of one orange

shake of cinnamon

pinch of salt

Combine cranberries, sugar, orange juice, wine, zest, cinnamon and salt in a heavy pan. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat and then reduce to low and simmer for 20 minutes. Stir occasionally to prevent burning. Remove from heat and refrigerate until ready to serve. Sauce will thicken as it cools.

Fran Hill has been blogging about food at On My Plate since October of 2006. She, her husband and their two dogs ranch near Colome.

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Strawberries and Snakes

By Katie Hunhoff

A pretty little strawberry patch flourishes in the backyard of our magazine. Normally, our staffers compete with the birds in June for ripe berries, but this year most of us are avoiding the patch because someone saw a family of snakes living in the dense foliage.

I don’t mind the backyard snakes, but I know ophiophobia — extreme fear of snakes — is prolific. In 2002, we published a story on rattlesnakes and asked Madison artist John Green to paint the cover — a friendly rattler holding an olive branch in his fangs. We were met with the biggest reader backlash in the history of South Dakota Magazine. Readers wrote scathing letters and threatened to cancel their subscriptions if we ever put a snake on the cover again.

We joked that the incident taught us why most magazines put pretty girls and fattening foods on their covers. But we never did it again.

Not all people run at the sight of snakes. A.M. Jackley was considered a hero when he became the state’s official rattlesnake hunter (a paid position) in 1937. He hunted them to help neighbors at first, and discovered he had a talent. Jackley had some opposition from early animal rights believers, but scoffed at his naysayers.”Those of us who have looked upon the still form of a child lying on the prairie with a rattlesnake coiled beside it, or have seen one bitten and suffer death, cannot take kindly this opposition,” he argued.

Ben Smith of Fort Pierre is South Dakota’s modern-day unofficial rattlesnake catcher. Smith grew up on a farm south of Fort Pierre and watched his dad kill snakes and save the rattles. When he was old enough, he started saving the rattles. He eventually began hunting them himself. People know they can call Smith with a snake emergency.”It’s an adrenaline rush to be out there,” he told us.”I’ll come and if I find them I’ll take them out.”

Earl Brockelsby, the father of Reptile Gardens near Rapid City, also felt that rush. But he didn’t kill snakes; he played with them. He first began to work with reptiles as a young guide at a roadside attraction near the Badlands. He soon learned he had a rapport with them.”Every time I came near their cage, they would coil up into a striking position with the neck in an ‘S’ … and rattle vigorously,” Brockelsby wrote years later.”Still, when I reached into the box to lift one out, it wouldn’t strike and would quit rattling once it was in my hand. Then it would crawl up my shirt sleeve, out the collar at my neck, then over my ear, and force his way under my hat where it would then coil tightly on top of my head.”

Brockelsby shocked and impressed tourists with such tricks as the summer progressed, and he eventually parlayed his talents into a new career opportunity at Reptile Gardens. A new book by Sam Hurst, Rattlesnake Under His Hat, tells of Brockelsby’s adventures. You can read a short excerpt in our July/August issue.

All we have here in our Yankton strawberry patch are harmless garter snakes, and yet I don’t think we have a single magazine staffer who would let one crawl up his or her shirt. Anybody want some pick-your-own strawberries?

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Buffalo Berries

By Linda Hasselstrom

At the edges of plateaus, wind and water erosion often cuts into the limestone to create small canyons, little habitats that are less arid than the surrounding plains, biological marvels: the Hanging Gardens of Dakota. Several kinds of bushes and trees, besides buffalo berry, favor this habitat: plum, currant, chokecherry, and sumac flourish under stunted cedars. Technically, the buffalo berry is Shepherdia Argentia, a perennial member of the Oleaster family. The shrub is seldom more than 6 feet tall, though one source says it can grow to 25 feet. The leaves are modestly silver on one side, gray and scaly on the other; brown flowers appear in May and June.

I have often thought the buffalo berry was designed with greedy humans in mind. You know the ones: they associate size and glitter with quality. It’s not love that counts with them, but the size of the diamond. They don’t care how a car runs; their eyes shine at spoke wheels, shiny red paint, a large price tag. These folks won’t notice the boring buffalo berry, even when it’s covered with berries that range from golden to a deep, brownish red.

The flavor of buffalo berries is incomparable. It most closely resembles alum, a cooking ingredient you probably will no longer find in your kitchen if you don’t make pickles. One-quarter teaspoon of alum, or a handful of buffalo berries, makes your mouth feel like you are eating Death Valley. The secret of buffalo berries is this: it’s impossible to eat them from the bush. They are the ideal harvest berries because you get what you pick.

Their other hidden weapon makes buffalo berries the elite among wild fruit. The thorns can be up to six inches long, all scientifically placed so you cannot pick a single berry without puncturing naked hands. Even leather gloves don’t save you from injury. Some experts say buffalo berry pickers should wait until the first frost loosens the berries, then spread a white sheet on the ground under the bushes, and shake the branches vigorously to dislodge the fruit. When I’ve waited for frost, I found the bushes bare, the ground decorated with a few shriveled berries and millions of grouse footprints. I heard miniature belches and the distant thunder of the flock waddling away. That’s the time to shoot a grouse, if you can see the little masters of camouflage. Then gently slit the crop, rinse the berries he’s eaten, and replace his intestines with them; roast him for an hour, and enjoy his succulent flesh with buffalo berry sauce.

The only really effective way to pick buffalo berries is to put on elbow-length leather gloves, a long-sleeved denim jacket over a long-sleeved shirt, and tuck the bottoms of your pants firmly into your boots to keep some of the ticks from crawling up your legs. The worst is yet to come. The berries are stuck to the branches, so you have to work to harvest them. On the other hand, they hang in clusters; each determined tug should give you about 10 berries. Then all you have to do is get them into the bucket without dropping the whole bunch.

One hot day, we picked two buckets in about a half hour. We left a large number of berries for the grouse: all those hidden in the tumbleweeds where we didn’t want to reach for fear of rattlesnakes, and the berries higher than we could reach.

Unlike plums, buffalo berries don’t have to be laboriously separated from their seeds, or peeled. Simply fill the bucket with water, and float the leaves and debris off the surface. Then drain off excess water, and dump the berries into a large cooking pot with a little water. Those who prefer the security of a recipe should use the sour cherry jelly recipe on a popular brand of fruit pectin, and substitute apple juice for one-third to one-half of the water. I use half or less of the amount of sugar prescribed, because I appreciate the berries’ tartness. When the juice has been boiled away from the seeds, I strain it before adding sugar for the second cooking.

The jelly is a tawny peach color, and the flavor is hard to describe. I might compare it to apple pie with lemon: sweet, extra tangy. But another element lurks in the flavor that I can’t compare to anything else. I think it’s the essence of wildness, clean prairie air made solid. It contains the deer that nibbled the leaves in winter, the beating of grouse wings as they pick berries from the highest branch, the blundering invulnerability of a porcupine living under the ledge. It’s the taste of blinding white drifts slowly being built and smoothed into glittering sculpture outside the house as you make morning toast, slathering it with butter and buffalo berry jelly. The jelly brings the flavor of summer heat to your tongue, a sheet of sweat to your shoulders; even as you watch the blizzard, it reminds you of spring fragrance and the cool nights of fall.

And there’s something more. Buffalo berries are symbolic, to me, of the answer to the question all plains people are eventually asked.

“Why,” the questioner will ask, looking around just before he gets back on the plane that will take him back to some metropolis, and smiling a little disdainfully, “Why do you stay here? You could be anywhere; you could make more money, have all the advantages. I know it’s beautiful, but … ” The questioner will shrug, wait a few seconds for an answer that doesn’t come, and tum to climb the steps to the seats between the mighty engines which may or may not fall off during his escape from the plains.

I want to say, “Because of the buffalo berries.” These tart little berries on hidden, thorny bushes are what the modern people of the plains have become. We’re not easy to find, and we tend to be a little prickly if we’ve been here long. Hardship and freedom breed stoicism, and don’t leave us with much patience for such questions. But when you get to know us, when you understand a little of our plains habitat, we’re rare and tasty.

Though it’s difficult to transfer hot jelly from a large pan into a tiny glass, I use my smallest containers for buffalo berry jelly. Almost none of it leaves the ranch. The people I give it to can be counted on the fingers of one hand bloodied with picking berries, and include the best people I know. A few years ago I published in one of my books a map of our ranch; I included specific directions that made my family a bit nervous, and a lot of detail: where the horse stepped on me, where my favorite horse is buried, the dam where the coyotes hunt. I’ve paid for my candor every time someone uses the map to drive into my yard and ask for a “tour of the ranch.” But even while being so naively forthright, I didn’t put in the ravines where buffalo berries grow, and it’s no use asking me. Find your own. Like Mother Nature, I can be harsh; like her, I’ve given you fair clues to their habitat.

And while you’re looking, you might come to understand what we are doing here, and that knowledge will be something else you can savor through a long, cold winter in some sooty, crowded city.

Editor’s Note: This story is revised from the July/August 1991 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call (800) 456-5117.

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Winter Blues

By Fran Hill

Christmas at the Capitol in Pierre includes nearly 100 trees decorated by volunteers from communities, schools, churches, nonprofit organizations and state government offices. The display runs annually from Thanksgiving through Christmas. With my penchant for sparkly lights, my husband and I decided to make the trek to Pierre to check things out last month, and it was well worth it.

Upon first entering the capitol building, the fragrance of evergreen trees welcomed us. The enchanting sounds of carolers in the rotunda floated through the air and drew us into a magical twinkling forest. We were mesmerized as we wandered the hallways and climbed the wide marble staircase to capture the view from the balconies. My heart was happy in a way that only occurs when I am surrounded by the sparkle and magic of the holiday season.

And then, it happened. Hubs noticed his first blue tile in the impressive terrazzo floor. We knew the history. Italian artisans, 66 in all, came to South Dakota to lay the beautiful mosaic tile. Unable to sign this work, they were each given a single blue tile to place at their own discretion as they performed their artistry. Only 55 have ever been located, and every child that visits the capitol participates in a self-imposed scavenger hunt to find them.

My husband and I became children once more and while still in awe of the fantastically decorated Christmas trees, each kept one eye to the ground in search of the elusive blue stones. We squealed and giggled with each find, and the sense of community was strong as another family joined us by sharing tips of the locations of tiles they had spotted. Those little blue tiles added another dimension of wonder to the already fabulous Christmas tree display.

Back home with the holidays dwindling, I didn’t let my search for blue end. With blueberries in the fridge, I pulled a tried and true recipe from my archives. Broiled Blueberries is an adaptive dish that makes an excellent dessert. Depending on the type of yogurt used, it is a pretty low-cal way to end a meal without sacrificing a single ounce of sweet blueberry satisfaction. However, the recipe was first introduced to me as a breakfast, and I have been broiling my blueberries while my whole grain bread is toasting for many years. The brown sugar topping caramelizes over the smooth, creamy yogurt, and the berries swell with sweetness under the intense heat. It’s almost like Cr’me Brule over luscious, juicy berries. Broiled Blueberries is a little blue delight, just like the stones in the terrazzo tile floor of the state capitol.

Broiled Blueberries

Broiled blueberries can be a sweet dessert or adapted for breakfast.

4 cups blueberries

2 cups Greek Gods Honey Yogurt (or other vanilla yogurt)

1-2 cups packed brown sugar


Preheat broiler.
Divide the berries between 4 ovenproof ramekins.
Spoon 1/2 cup of yogurt over berries in each ramekin.
Top with brown sugar. (Use enough to completely cover the yogurt and berries.)
Broil 3-4 minutes, until the sugar is melted and caramelized. (Watch carefully, as the sugar can burn.)
Serve immediately (although, leftovers can be refrigerated and are still quite tasty when cold).

Fran Hill has been blogging about food at On My Plate since October of 2006. She, her husband and their two dogs ranch near Colome.

Posted on by — Leave a comment

My Mulberry Harvest

By Ruth Steil

A large mulberry tree grew at the back of our farm, between a rusted horse-drawn plow and a pile of lumber. It was a place only curious children and chickens explored. When the summer heat grew high, we hopscotched barefoot through purple splotches of fallen fruit, then reached high in the tree to grab the juicy berries to eat from our hands.

I hadn’t thought about mulberries for a long time. But one year, when I heard the berries were ripe, I embarked on a first-time jam-making adventure.

On a sunny, still morning, my husband and I met a friend and his dog, Yeller, at their farm to pick mulberries. We drove through tall wind-waving grass to a row of trees at the side of a field. Yeller leaned out the car window, ears flapping, a big dog smile sucking in cool morning air redolent with growing corn and freshly turned soil.

As we stepped out of the car, we saw a deer patiently watching us from across the field. He must have been interested in the mulberries, too. There were hoof prints and what I thought were deer droppings on the ground around the trees. My companions insisted the pellets came from rabbits. Yankton County must grow some big rabbits.

I’d read that picking mulberries is easy if you shake them into an old sheet or tarp. We shook the branches over an inexpensive paint tarp from the hardware store. In less than a half-hour, we had a large bowl full of mulberries — as well as ticks, ladybugs, spiders, some twigs and a caterpillar. I suspect removing all these adds enough time to the sorting process to make handpicking almost as efficient. But then I also tried to carefully return as many of the little creatures as I could to the outdoors — except for the ticks.

Somewhere in school, I’d learned that silkworms consume mulberry leaves while spinning their silken cocoons. So I wondered if that little caterpillar was a silkworm. With a little research, I discovered that silkworms, like so many other species, sadly don’t survive in nature anymore.

According to a Web site I consulted, the mulberries should soak for an hour and then be rinsed and drained. I’ve since learned that berries absorb water and will lose flavor if you do this. Kay Stevens, author of Wild Season: Gathering and Cooking Wild Plants of the Great Plains, recommends soaking the mulberries for three minutes in salt water — º cup salt to a gallon of water — draining the salt water and then gently rinsing. I removed the stems on the berries with a newly-purchased cuticle scissors, but Stevens writes that she’s never seen a need to remove the stems and has never had any complaints.

If you’re planning to attend a big event — say, your daughter’s wedding — wear rubber gloves while working with mulberries. My husband recalls, while vacationing on the farm with his grandparents, rubbing his entire body with mulberries. When he went to the house to surprise them with his artistry, his grandmother was horrified. Mulberries do stain, but not nearly as badly as I had remembered. After a day or two, the purple on my hands disappeared and our stained dish towels bleached clean.

Mulberry Streusel Coffee Cake

Filling:

3 1/2 cups mulberries
1 cup water
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 1/4 cups sugar
1/3 cup cornstarch

Batter:

3 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup cold butter
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 cup (8 oz.) sour cream
1 teaspoon vanilla

Topping:

1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup butter
1/2 cup pecans, chopped

Glaze:

1/2 cup confectioner’s sugar
2 teaspoons milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Filling: in a large saucepan, cook mulberries and water over medium heat for 5 minutes. Add lemon juice. Combine sugar and cornstarch, and stir into fruit mixture. Bring to a boil. Cook and stir for 2 minutes or until thickened. Cool.

Batter: In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder and soda. Cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Stir in eggs, sour cream and vanilla. Batter will be stiff.

Spread half of the batter into a greased 13x9x2 baking dish. Spread mulberry filling over batter. Spoon remaining batter over filling.

Combine the topping ingredients and sprinkle over the top. Bake at 350 degrees for 40-45 minutes or until golden brown. When cool, drizzle glaze over the top. Makes 12-16 servings.



Editor’s Note: This story is revised from the July/August 2007 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call 800-456-5117.

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Antique Versus Vintage

By Fran Hill

The Antiques Roadshow will be in Rapid City this weekend taping for their 2013 PBS season. My husband is a HUGE fan and seldom misses a Sunday viewing of this show. Several friends have tickets to visit the appraisers for the event and have the mysteries of their valuables unlocked and assessed. I was feeling quite jealous of their chance to rub elbows with the Keno twins, but lucky for me, an opportunity to volunteer with the program opened up.

I am required to attend a training session, wear sensible shoes, work a long day of what will most likely be directing guests to the nearest restroom, and can bring something of my own for appraisal. If you know me, you are probably concerned about the sensible shoe requirement. My usual strappy wedge sandals and pointy-toed boots don’t really fall into a judicious category. Never fear. I do have shoes that can stand up to 12 hours on a concrete floor.

What troubles me is the appraisal. My home is filled with many thrift store and antique shop finds along with a few sentimental, inherited pieces. However, my treasures are more what you would call”vintage” rather than”antique.” Sell everything I own in one big lot, and you wouldn’t have enough cash to purchase a reproduction Tiffany lamp, let alone an original. I basically own a collection of carefully collected junk. Cue my panic.

Fortunately, as a volunteer, my willingness to do the bidding of the PBS crew is more important than lugging an antique oil painting through the doors of the venue. I don’t *have to* bring an item for appraisal. I just have to work. I can do that, and my hoard can remain blissfully vintage.

Strawberry Rhubarb Upside-Down Cake seems blissfully vintage to me, as well. The reliance on the convenience of cake mix and jello harkens to the 1950s instead of the 1850s. Passed from neighbor to neighbor over coffee, and included in every church cookbook, this recipe is a treasure that doesn’t need to be appraised, just enjoyed.

Strawberry Rhubarb Upside-Down Cake

4 cups rhubarb, chopped into 1/2-inch pieces
6 teaspoons Minute Tapioca (instant)
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 3-ounce package strawberry Jell-O gelatin
1 18-ounce white cake mix
3 eggs
1/3 cup oil
1 1/3 cups water

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour a 9×13 pan. Combine rhubarb, tapioca, sugar, and dry Jell-o together in a bowl. Pour into the bottom of the prepared pan. Combine remaining ingredients for cake as instructed on package. Pour cake batter over rhubarb mixture in pan. Bake for 1 hour. Serve with whipped cream. Serves 12.

Fran Hill has been blogging about food at On My Plate since October of 2006. She, her husband and two dogs reside near Colome.



Posted on by — Leave a comment

The War for the Strawberries

By Fran Hill

There is a war taking place in my backyard. Ace, one of my miniature dachshunds, has been battling with the squirrels since he was a mere pup. He stalks and chases them daily. They respond by bouncing from tree to tree and limb to limb, mocking him with their perky chattering. Meanwhile, Ace plants his stout frame on his hindquarters at the base of the mighty cottonwood in which they make their home and bays like a coon dog. It has been comical, and I will admit that I have laughed at him on more than one occasion.

However, the laughing is over. I am joining Ace’s army against the squirrels. You see, last week I witnessed one squirrel digging merrily into my strawberry plants. His bushy tail swayed cockily as he plucked one of the few red, ripe berries and sat back on the railroad tie edging of the berry patch to eat it. Then, haughtily, he reached in and grabbed another. WHAT?!? THIS is why I don’t have any strawberries to harvest?

I have invested in netting to drape my precious strawberries, but the internets are telling me that it won’t be long before my pesky little friend finds a way through that meager barrier. Hubs has suggested a .22 mounted to Ace’s back that he can fire with his tail. This may be war, but I (and city ordinances) would like a more peaceful solution. What is your method for protecting your garden from critters? Any tried and true way to keep the squirrels from driving you nuts?

If you are lucky enough to have strawberries, here is an easy recipe for a sinfully creamy strawberry dessert. This Strawberry Mousse is excellent on its own, served with a few butter or chocolate cookies on the side, layered with fruit and cake or crushed cookies in parfaits, or as a dressed up whipped topping on your favorite strawberry pie or strawberry rhubarb cake. The ideas are endless…if the squirrels don’t eat your strawberries.

Strawberry Mousse

Adapted from Gourmet Magazine

4 cups strawberries, quartered, plus a few additional berries for garnish, if desired
3 tablespoons sugar
3 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
2 1/4 teaspoons unflavored gelatin
4 1/2 tablespoons water
1 cup heavy cream, well-chilled

Mash the strawberries with sugar and lemon juice in a bowl with a fork or potato masher. Sprinkle gelatin evenly over water in a small saucepan and let stand 1 minute to soften. Warm water gently over low heat, stirring until gelatin is dissolved. Stir gelatin mixture into mashed strawberries. Chill bowl of berries and stir frequently until gelatin begins to set, about 5-10 minutes. (The mixture should hold its shape briefly before dissolving.) Meanwhile, beat cream until it holds soft peaks. Fold whipped cream into the strawberries. Spoon mousse into serving dishes and chill for at least 30 minutes, until set. Garnish with additional whipped cream and berries, if desired. Serves 4.

Fran Hill has been blogging about food at On My Plate since October of 2006. She, her husband and two dogs reside near Colome.

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Meet Our New Staffer

Today’s an exciting day at the office. We began the day with some wheat bread and homemade raspberry jam, brought by our newest staffer, Laura Johnson. Laura is our assistant marketing director. She will be working with Heidi Marsh to be sure fresh, entertaining material is always available to you on our website.

Gardening and cooking are some of Laura’s favorite hobbies, so she might start contributing some recipes and food articles. Laura wrote a couple of paragraphs to introduce herself to our web readers. We asked her to share the raspberry jam recipe with you, too.

Our new staffer, Laura Johnson.

By Laura Johnson

I started out life on a farm north of Mission Hill. I can remember hot summer days spent out in the bean field spraying weeds with my dad and brothers. Every now and then, Dad would suggest we quit early for the day and head over to Ponds of Fun to relax. By Ponds of Fun, he meant the scummy, snapping turtle-infested pond in Mission Hill. It had its hazards, but the water was cool and it beat working.

After 13 years spent in exile in Minnesota, I moved back to South Dakota in 2006. One of the things that brought me back home was the desire to spend time with aging grandparents, but another draw was the ability to see the sky again. When you grow up loving farmland and prairie, being hemmed in on all sides by trees and buildings can be rather oppressive.

Last year, I was allowed access to a friend’s abandoned raspberry patch. I wasn’t even sure I liked raspberries, but was lured in by the idea of free food and the ability to indulge in my passion for pulling weeds. Once I had experienced the thrill of seeking out the little red berries while fighting off insects, thorny raspberry canes, and giant weeds, I was hooked. Once my friends and family tried the homemade raspberry jam that resulted from my labor, they were hooked too. Be careful who you choose to give a jar to – they will pester you for more.

Raspberry jam glows atop a slice of peanut butter toast.

Red Raspberry Preserves

4 cups raspberries
3 cups sugar
1/4 cup lemon juice

Makes about 3 cups.

Sort fresh raspberries, discarding any that are soft, moldy, or otherwise dubious looking. Rinse and drain them well.

Stir the raspberries, sugar, and the lemon juice together in a bowl, using a rubber spatula. Let the mixture stand, stirring gently once or twice, until the sugar has dissolved, about 2 hours.

Scrape the mixture into a stainless steel or other nonreactive large skillet or sautÈ pan. Bring it to a boil, stirring constantly with a straight-ended wooden or nylon spatula, and boil it rapidly, stirring often, until it passes the jelly test; this will take from 3 to 5 minutes, depending on the juiciness of the berries. Remove from the heat.

Skim off any foam and ladle the hot preserves into hot, clean half-pint canning jars, leaving º inch of headspace. Seal the jars with new two-piece canning lids according to manufacturer’s directions and process for 10 minutes in a boiling-water bath. Cool, label and store the jars. The preserves will keep for at least a year in a cool cupboard.

If the jelling doesn’t work out, do not fret. Even if it does slide off your toast, the cooked berry-sugar mixture will still make a fine sauce for ice cream, waffles, or anything else that would benefit from a sweet, fruity topping.

From”The Good Stuff Cookbook” by Helen Witty

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Strawberry Crisp

By Katie Hunhoff

We have a small strawberry patch behind the South Dakota Magazine office and it seems it is at its peak right now.

Have you ever had a taste-test between a store-bought and home-grown strawberry? The difference is almost unbelievable. The store-bought is almost devoid of taste when compared to a freshly picked berry. I’d recommend making this crisp with strawberries from a farmer’s market, or if you are lucky, from your backyard.

This recipe is a mix-and-match of various recipes I found on the web. Enjoy!

Strawberry Crisp

3 cups strawberries, tops off and halved
1 tablespoon lemon juice
2 tablespoons sugar
1 cup dry oats
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
1 stick butter (cut into pieces)
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cinamon
1/2 cup pecans

Directions:

1. Mix strawberries with lemon juice and sugar. Set aside.

2. Butter an 8×8 baking dish. Heat oven to 325 degrees

3. Make topping: mixflour, brown sugar, cinnamon and salt. Add butter pieces and use fingers to mix.

4. Place strawberry mixture in prepared 8×8 dish and cover with topping. Bake for 45 – 50 minutes until topping is crispy and strawberries are bubbling.