While you can still find good strawberries, on an early summer day, make a great strawberry shake. Retreat to that shady corner of the garden, under the oak canopy, listen to the melody of the birds and the whispering of the breezes through the branches, and linger over your shake. There's not much that's more refreshing and satisfying than a thick strawberry shake made with fresh, plump strawberries and premium ice cream. This one is topped with sweetened, flavored whipped cream.
2. Peel the tomatoes by starting a small slit in the skin with a knife at the tip of a tomato. Grasp the edge of the skin and peel the skin from the tomato in strips. Repeat with each tomato.3. Cut away the top of the tomato. Cut the tomato in half. With your thumb, loosen the seeds and press them into a bowl or into the sink. With Roma tomatoes, only the flesh will remain. With other tomatoes, you can remove most of the seeds. Throw the seeds away. Repeat with the remaining tomatoes.While it's easy to peel and seed tomatoes by hand, you can do it in less time with tools. A Victorio strainer, a food mill, or potato ricer will do it if the screens are small enough. (It takes 2.2 millimeter screen or smaller to catch tomato seeds.) A Victorio strainer has a hopper on the top and a twist handle and will handle a lot of produce in a hurry. It catches both the seeds and the skins and it is available with different sized screens to make anything from raspberry jelly to applesauce to salsa. You can get the same results from a food mill but without the large hopper and screw type crank of the vireo strainer, it is not as quick. A ricer is a simple hand press used to press one tomato at a time through a screen. It also is used to rice potatoes and other produce. Choose the tool that meets your needs.The following recipe makes two shakes. So as to not overfill the blender, make a half at a time.sweetened whipped cream for topping3. Put the shake in a tall, chilled glass while you make the second shake.4. Top the shakes with whipped cream and an optional strawberry and serve.How to Chop and Seed Tomatoes2 tablespoons olive oil1. Bring a pan of water to boil. Place four or five tomatoes at a time in the hot water and leave them in the bath for one minute. Remove them from the water and start another batch. Let the tomatoes cool to where you can handle them.1/2 teaspoon vanilla or other flavor2 to 3 cups peeled and seeded Roma or other tomatoesTools for Removing the Seeds from TomatoesCanning Your Tomato SauceIf you love your own tomato sauce, can it. Maybe you like the spice blend that you are using. Maybe it's the idea of doing it yourself, maybe canning your own tomatoes. Maybe it's to save money but it's great to can your own tomato sauce. Just make a bigger batch and can it according to the instructions from a reliable source such as your equipment manual or a government source.1. Chill the cream, the utensils, and bowl that you will be using.Chill the blender and glasses in the freezer before making the shakes. If your blender is at room temperature, it melts the ice cream and your shakes will not be as thick as they should. Use ice cream that is rock hard. (It's easer to remove rock hard ice from the package with a spade than with an ice cream scoop.) And don't run the blender longer than is needed. The heat from the motor will start to melt your ice cream.1/4 teaspoon salt or to tasteThere are some tricks to making a very good strawberry shake. Start with the very best berries. If they are not fully ripe, they won't be flavorful but if they are starting to get mushy, they may have an off-taste. And put the right amount of berries in the shake. Judge the amount by the color of the shake; it should be a rich but pastel pink. If it's too light, add more berries.For the whipped cream topping:1. Wash, trim, and slice the berries. Sprinkle the sugar on the berries and let them soak at room temperate for two hours or overnight in the refrigerator.
Baker's note: If you have extra whipped cream, try freezing it. Spoon mounds onto waxed appear and put the sheet with whipped cream into the freezer. Once frozen, you can peel the mounds of whipped cream from the waxed paper, and store them in zipper plastic bag.
Author: Dennis Weaver
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