Strawberry

We made eight jars of strawberry jam;only one didn't seal right, oh darn we have to use it right away. Isn't that red gorgeous? We ran out of our homemade jellies and jams two months ago. The Bug is Very happy to have jelly on her peanut butter sandwiches again. This year I used half the sugar called for in the recipe and it tastes wonderful. Last year's was so sweet you could barely taste the fruit.
I also made the Strawberry-Rose Water Cobbler with Lemon-Poppy Seed Pastry (thank you Rebeca for the Rose Water!). It tasted just as beautifully as it sounds. The pastry top is supposed to get rolled out and put on in a lattice pattern. When I made it, however, the dough was very wet, more like what you'd expect with a cobbler that uses the drop it on method. So that's just what I did I plopped it on there. After hulling three pounds of strawberries I was just fine with this simpler method anyway.
There were a lot of weirdly shaped strawberries this year; I called them Fringe Strawberries (yes I'm a dork). I sliced and dehydrated these is hopes they'd retain their shape; for the most part this was true.
I've also frozen some for later use in an apply cobbler, some smoothies and just in general munching through the cold months when a splash of bright red warms the soul. I don't think we picked as much this year; their just doesn't seem to be as much in the freezer and it didn't seem like we were snacking on strawberries for long before they were all gone.