Try this at home

Okay, so we went strawberry picking and, as usual, hoarded picked as though we would never see another strawberry again. They were soooo good - nice & ripe right off the vine. The only problem? They start to get overripe REALLY quickly, so we had to figure out what to do with them - FAST. This wasn't too much of a problem since we ate nearly half on the first day.

What did we do with the rest? Well...
We made these, of course! Chocolate cupcakes with with a fresh strawberry in the center, topped with cream cheese frosting and a sprinkling of brown sugar! I got the recipe from iheartcuppycakes.com, one of my favorite sites. They were surprisingly easy and basically awesome!! They look pretty impressive too, don't they?

Then, look who came to visit.










Mickey looks tastes soooo much better with a little strawberry sauce and almond flavored whipped cream to dress him up.

I love whipped cream, but it's EVEN BETTER when you add just a touch of flavoring to it. The almond was a perfect complement to the strawberry flavor. We've been on a waffle kick, and the other day we had waffles with warm blueberry sauce & cinnamon flavored whipped cream - yum! - but I digress...

Finally, made some freezer jam with the last of the berries and some corn muffins to go with it. This jam is unbelievably easy. It left me wondering why I've never made it before.

The strawberries are gone, but there are plenty more berries that will be ripening in the next few weeks. Next on the picking list? Blueberries, raspberries & blackberries. I love summer!!