Garden living, or weaving the garden into your daily life, is a lifestyle filled with rewarding promise and new adventure. Harvesting your own vegetables from your kitchen garden for a dinner party, then arranging a beautiful bouquet from the same source takes careful planning, but can enhance your life whether you live in the city, suburbs or country. “Hyper-seasonal” is how I describe my cooking, along with giving traditional Southern heirloom recipes a healthier twist to make them relevant to today’s tastes.

Recipes

Strawberry Blonde

What a perfect name for a lovely drink! Taking the fiery redness of strawberries and blending it with the calming color of cream, one will find the most beautiful pink drink to serve your friends and family. When strawberry season is at its peak, this drink is fabulously delicious. Serve with a dollop of whipped cream and you have strawberries and cream in a drink!

They say gentlemen prefer blondes… well, this gentlemen will take this Strawberry Blonde any day!

2 cups of strawberries, tops removed
1 cup of milk (I use 2%)
3 cups of heavy whipping cream (for drink and garnish respectively)
¼ cup of powdered sugar
1 teaspoon of good vanilla

Blend strawberries, milk, 1 ½ cups of cream, sugar, and vanilla together until fluffy and smooth. Add ice to the blender for slush.

The Farmer’s Whipped Vanilla Bean Crème Fraiche…

Whipped Cream, Ya’ll

There is a bit of art to whipping cream. Here are a few of this Farmer’s tips and my recipe… master this and you’ll have so many friends and family wanting a finger licking taste, you’ll have to give out numbers!

  • ALWAYS use a metal (copper or stainless steel) or glass bowl. Ceramic is fine too. Plastic won’t cut it.
  • ALWAYS use cold cream and GOOD vanilla beans and vanilla extract. This is one delicacy you’ll truly taste the vanilla and you want the best.
  • I use my vanilla sugar (vanilla bean pod infused sugar) for that added richness and depth of flavor.
  • Whip, mix, whisk until the cream forms soft peaks and just looks right… It shouldn’t be runny in the least after mixing and can be stored in the fridge for a few days. It will get runny on a hot piece of pie, but that’s perfectly apropos!

 The Farmer’s Whipped Vanilla Bean Crème Fraiche

  • 2 cups of heavy whipping cream or crème fraiche… Whipping cream is more of a liquid and crème fraiche can be more solid. Use more sugar if using crème fraiche and a scant less for whipping cream since it is slightly sweeter.
  • Tablespoon of good vanilla
  • Scant teaspoon of scraped vanilla bean pod’s inside. We eat with our eyes first, so seeing those vanilla bean specks is a visual appetizer of the glory divine to come.
  • Scant tablespoon of vanilla sugar. Cook’s note – I don’t like heavily sweetened whipped cream. I love the taste of whipped cream by itself…the sugar just sweetens the pot, literally! Add more sugar if you prefer, but, trust me, the actual taste of whipped cream on its own is delicious!
  • Beat until it begins to form soft peaks that can stand on their own and no longer runny!
  • Serve with just about anything and it will be delicious I’m sure! Enjoy!