Fun with Strawberries

Wow! We found strawberries! When I grew up here, that was absolutely impossible! And now, we found a whole box of them (about 4 pints) for R$10 , which is about $7.50. When we came home, I wanted so much to keep them from spoiling that I washed and processed them immediately.

Here, we have to wash all our fruits and vegetables and let them soak before we eat them. There's no limit to the yucky stuff you can find in/on your veggies and fruits. So, I soaked them in bleach water for 15 minutes after rinsing them under running water. Then I processed them, while saving the prettiest ones for something special.

I had attempted homemade yogurt (like I remember my mom making) at the end of last week and had a little of that left over (by the way it worked great!), so I mixed some strawberries with that. We had strawberries on pancakes with homemade whipped cream (from the cream from our milk). And tonight was the big treat. I melted some chocolate and used those perfect strawberries and made chocolate covered strawberries for all of us! What a treat! The kids were jumping up and down and it was a real joy to see them enjoying a treat, "just like the States", Mickey said. Todd really enjoyed it too! :)

I've saved two little tupperwares full of the strawberries cut up with sugar to use on some other special occasion. I don't know how often we can find them or afford them, but it has sure been special!

By the way, if you've noticed, I'm trying to find uses for homemade dairy products, how to make yogurt, whipped cream, cream cheese, cottage cheese, etc. The yogurt worked and was super easy! The whipped cream as well. If I can get enough cream, I'll try to make butter. I tried cottage cheese and it didn't work, I think I must have missed a step. And the cream cheese recipes I've found are made from the yogurt, so I'll try to get that recipe down first before I try the cream cheese. It's lots of fun trying stuff I never thought about making in the States!