Wedding Song - God Knew That I Needed You

Tuesday, June 25, 2019

BERRY COBBLER SHORTCAKE


I was up bright and early this morning – even had a light breakfast; normally I skip breakfast, but I thought I better have something to eat this morning since I was going to be walking around the Lake (https://jeastofeden.blogspot.com/2019/06/trying-to-find-balance.html).

I met David at the Lake, across from RAL at 9 a.m., prompt, and we started walking & talking: about Bob at first, then about everything else. At the start of our walk, we caught sight of city workers putting this plaque into place for the upcoming 4th of July festivities at the Lake:

Got a chuckle out of this ... is Cowlitz County stuck in a time warp or what? This IS 2019, right???

When we had made the upper end loop, cutting alongside Ocean Beach Highway, heading back towards our vehicles …

Last lap of the upper end loop walk around lake Sacajawea. We felt a few raindrops here - but they didn't last long.

… we made a pact to walk twice a week – at least – every Tuesday & Thursday (flexible, depending on circumstances & situations) around the Lake. David & I have known each other since my family moved to Skamokawa, Washington from Grand Rapids, Minnesota in 1966 … pretty much forever. David, at one point – being a good friend, even introduced me to my future husband in 1974 – but I wasn’t interested; I was already seeing someone. And I was even kinda pissed, truth be told, that he might think I wasn’t capable of getting my own dates! LOL

But, I did eventually meet Bob – and snagged him on my own: LOL!; and all was forgiven ;-)

David’s 1st wife, Marla, and I were lifelong friends – until the cancer she had valiantly fought finally claimed her. David’s son, Tavis, and my daughter, Stacey, were childhood friends.


After I came back home, I promptly baked a yummy dessert (recipe at end of post) :-D

I had gone back to Crawford’s Strawberry Farm, this past Sunday with Cheryl & Mike, and picked more strawberries
(https://jeastofeden.blogspot.com/2019/06/going-up-to-country.html); so I am trying to use them up before they go bad: they were already pretty ripe when we picked them.

I had this recipe in mind at the Strawberry farm, so I picked some smaller berries to use in the recipe:

Little strawberries are perfect for this recipe as they don’t have to be cut.

The house smelled SO GOOD!

And the cobbler ain’t bad either ;-)

==BERRY COBBLER SHORTCAKE  ~Makes 8 servings

2 cups all-purpose Flour * About 1-1/3 cups Sugar *(or substitute 52 pkts. of Stevia – set aside 11 of those pkts. for the whipped topping) * 2 teaspoons Baking Powder * 1 teaspoon Lemon Peel * 1 teaspoon Orange Peel * ½ teaspoon Baking Soda * ½ teaspoon Salt * About 3/4 cup (3/8 lb.) Butter OR margarine, cut into chunks * 2 large Eggs * 2/3 cup Buttermilk * 2 quarts Berries, rinsed & drained (use 1 kind , or a blend of several), such as blueberries, olallieberries, loganberries, raspberries, or hulled strawberries * 1 cup Whipping Cream *IF you substitute Stevia for the sugar, ADD 6 oz. Yogurt

Stevia: sugar substitute for cobbler
Stevia; sugar substitute for whipped topping

1) In a bowl, combine flour, 1 cup sugar, baking powder, lemon peel, orange peel, baking soda, and salt. Blend together:


2) With a pastry blender or your fingers, cut in or rub in 3/4 cup butter until coarse crumbs form:


3) In another bowl, mix eggs and buttermilk to blend *(if you are using yogurt, add that here too). Add to flour mixture; stir with a fork until evenly moistened. Spread batter in a buttered shallow 9 x 13-inch casserole. (I used 3 round cake pans, dividing the batter equally; 1 cobbler to be eaten this week, and 2 cobblers to be frozen for future snacks).


4) Slice strawberries, if using. In a bowl, mix berries with ¼ cup sugar *(or the 11 set-aside pkts. of Stevia). Spoon 3 cups berries evenly over batter. If desired, sweeten remaining berries with more sugar to taste:

Equally divided berry studded cobbler; ready for oven.

5) Bake cobbler in a 350-degree oven until browned – about 30-40 minutes.

3 pans barely fit the oven ...

6) Meanwhile, in a bowl with a mixer on high speed, whip cream until it holds soft peaks; sweeten with about 2 Tablespoons of sugar to taste *(4 pkts. Stevia).

7) Cut warm or cool cobbler into 8 portions (3 cake pans, as I used, will make 9 portions).


With a wide spatula, transfer portions to plates. Top equally with remaining berries and whipped topping.

YUMMY!

LOOKING FOR MR. SUN


Mr. Sun has gone MIA

Seriously in hiding. And I have been told that rain and thunder is coming:


My limping-along-garden is doing its best to put its best face forward in some beds to cheer me up …

Pretty, colorful, variegated leaves showing on the Painted Mountain corn stalks.

But it is losing the battle in others, as Mr. Sun continues hiding his face from us:


Even though I have not started to be affected by creeping crud on my outer extremities as my poor lettuce has, I am nonetheless feeling the down-slide effects of the perpetual gray days.

WE NEED SUNSHINE!

After I pulled all my ruined lettuce – lettuce can do without harsh sunlight, but it still NEEDS some sunlight for healthy growth – I gathered some miner’s lettuce, purslane, violas, and nasturtium leaves/flowers to add to the sparse gleaned lettuce leaves to make a spicy, healthy, and nutritious skimpy salad for Supper.

This will be my last salad for a few weeks, until the seedlings re-sown in the gleaned bed sprouts and starts putting out greens again …


Hopefully, Mr. Sun will sort out whatever sent him into a full-blown snit and get with the program ;-)