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 4^th 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 1^st 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 ;-)