Strawberries!

Unfortunately their season is short, but we have been enjoying the strawberries a whole lot lately!
We go pick them at the strawberry farm and that is as fresh and local as one can get. They are delicious, juicy, red, and soooo sweet!
I love them just as they are, have been enjoying bowlfuls of the berries for breakfast, but there are also a few recipes that both the husband and Matheus request and so they appear year after year in our kitchen during strawberry season!
Truly, this year the one new recipe I made was Strawberry Ice Cream, which turned out not only delicious but had the most gorgeous and natural color I have ever seen on a strawberry ice cream!
It was so good though that we ate it all in a couple of days and I even forgot to take pictures... so, this will be one of the few posts without a recipe photo, but you can imagine how strawberry ice cream looks like, right?!!
And, to make up for that here some of the other recipes I have already made this past few weeks with our juicy red gems:

Strawberry Muffins (Matheus and the Husband love these muffins!)

Strawberry Tart (This is the Husband's favorite! And my sister's too!)

Strawberry Bavaroise (This one is strawberry creaminess at it's best, it's my favorite!)

There are other recipes in the blog archive, such as strawberry bread and pancakes with strawberry sauce, which I have made too this year already, so take a peek there and see what other goodies you can find!
Here goes the ice cream recipe, it is so easy and so good! Gotta love ice cream season!
Enjoy!
Ana

Strawberry Ice Cream
(adapted from the book From Your Ice Cream Maker)

3 cups fresh strawberries, clean and stemmed (or 16oz/500g frozen strawberries - unsweetened) I used three heaping cupfulls of strawberries and my ice cream had an intensely awesome fruity flavor!
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
2/3 cups sugar (use more or less depending upon the sweetness of your strawberries)
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 tablespoons Triple Sec, or your favorite orange liqueur (alcohol doesn't completely freezes, so this helps your ice cream not to turn rock hard on your freezer - plus it adds a depth of flavor to the ice cream, even though you don't taste it on the final product)
A tiny pinch of salt

Process all ingredients on a blender or food processor until all incorporated and the strawberries are pureed to the desired consistency (I left some ity bitty chunks on mine for texture and deliciousness!). Refrigerate the mixture for a few hours until it is thoroughly chilled. Give it a quick whiz and pour the mixture in the ice cream maker, following the instruction of your machine.
Makes about 1 quart.

My note: if you use chilled fruit and cream you can even pour the mixture directly into the ice cream maker right after you blend the ingredients. However, the colder the mixture the less time it takes for your ice cream to churn and the creamier it will be!
This is pure cold strawberry bliss and since it uses so little ingredients try to use the best fruits and cream you can find, it really does make a difference here!! This is worth the wait, time and money spent on it!
Ana