Strawberry Recipes Add Excitement to Your Meal Plans

What’s cooking in your kitchen this spring?

I hope you’re cooking with lots of exciting colour! Speaking of colour, fresh local red strawberries are starting to appear on our local grocery shelves!

It’s been a slow start for them to appear in Vancouver, but it’s been worth the wait - they are sweet and delicious. They have a short growing season, so I suggest eating as many as you can while they last.

In my last article, I suggested adding excitement into your daily cooking routine by buying a new kitchen tool. Did you have any success? If you’re still looking for the perfect new tool to add to your kitchen arsenal, I’d like to suggest a strawberry huller.

It’s a small tool with a sharp claw-like scoop at the end used to quickly and easily remove the green stems from the tops of strawberries. It’s a perfect kitchen tool if you love strawberries, and is especially helpful if you plan on making homemade jam with the local strawberries.

Here’s how a simple strawberry huller works.

1. Place the claw of the scoop just below where the leaves join the strawberry.

2. Push into the flesh of the strawberry in a scooping motion to remove the green stem.

3. Lift the green stem upwards to completely remove the leaves and stalk from the strawberry.

It’s that simple! I suggest you do it over your green bin so you can quickly and efficiently discard the hull. As you can see, this huller leaves most of the strawberry flesh behind eliminating any waste of the strawberries while removing the stem.

The spring season is all about shaking off the doldrums winter soups and stews, and this tool can be great way to add some excitement to your cooking routine.

Another way to heighten enthusiasm with your weekly meal prep is to pick a spring fruit or vegetable, perhaps a favourite such as strawberries, or maybe something you’ve never tried before!

Then, find some new recipes to try with that seasonal ingredient. If you do choose strawberries, I’ve included four delicious recipes to try in this newsletter. First, there’s a strawberry salsa served with grilled halibut (though any fish will do), or even chicken.

Plus, I have three desserts for you: a strawberry, rhubarb compote that is great on ice cream, yogurt or even on your morning oatmeal. A sweet and tart strawberry-rhubarb cobbler, which I highly recommend trying, and a strawberry chocolate shortcake, smothered in whipping cream.

Happy cooking and I wish you all great success, joy and excitement in your home kitchens.