Kitchen Monkey

10 June 2008

Berry Nice!

Here come the berries June is here and over this month and next we overload on those luscious berries be them red or black.

What am I talking about well strawberries, raspberries, black currants and red currants. Together these make some fantastic mouth watering desserts of which some are my favourite including summer crumbles & cobblers and of course the signature dish of the Summer Pudding. These desserts along with the numerous varieties of cheesecakes & pavlova's you can make with these fabulous fruits. It’s that combination of tart fruit which makes you draw breath with those full ripe sweet flavours which make these desserts special in our British summer times.

So get yourself off to your local PYO (pick your own) or farm shop for the pick of the summer berries and don’t forget to make your own jams while the fruits are in abundance, even better if you have grown your own. Although the black birds in my garden have taken a great fancy this year to my strawberries along with the hedgehogs, that I now daily have to beat them both to the ripening fruit else they are all gone.

Just one word of warning though, local PYO’s have got together to catch nibbling picker’s out who eat more than they pay for, like the recent lady in the newspaper who turned up at the paying station covered in juice with just 4 strawberries in her punnet to pay for claiming she had not eaten any and they found a bowl , spoon, sugar and cream carton in her bag. I think the saying caught red handed literally comes to mind!

Check out my next blog for a fabulous jam recipe or send me yours to info@kitchenmonkey.co.uk