Summer is here!

This past weekend was a time I look forward to as soon as signs of spring start to appear - strawberry picking! I came home with a good amount of strawberries, but I hope to make it out again before they are gone. There is nothing like fresh strawberries! I froze most of my berries this time. I use them in smoothies and baking throughout the year. I love to make a mixed berry crisp in the middle of the winter from frozen berries that I picked throughout the summer....reminds me of better times! I had also gotten some rhubarb, so the first thing I made was a strawberry rhubarb crisp. Paired with vanilla ice cream, it can't be beat!

Today Aurelia and I made the rhubarb muffin recipe from the Whole Life Nutrition blog that I've been following. It uses sorghum flour, which is a decent source of protein, calcium, and iron - and gluten-free! I made a few adjustments to the recipe, the most important was adding strawberries! I also decided to abandon the orange juice and peel and just used almond milk for the liquid. I used agave as the sweetener (probably did closer to a 1/3 cup than 1/2, but I didn't cut back too much!). We didn't have as much rhubarb as she recommends, but we put in what we had. The results were delicious! No crumbliness. If only I could figure out how to make that happen in my own creations! I thought the texture was great and they were quite tasty - the girls loved them too. Aurelia has plans for us to make them again but with mangoes and pineapple. And banana pineapple mango. And strawberry blueberry....and plain blueberry....just in case you need some inspiration for some other combinations :)

The week has been full of greens, sugar snap peas, asparagus, baby carrots, radishes, and strawberries from the garden, the farmer's market, and the orchard....it doesn't get much better than this!