Strawberry Waffles and Funny Eggs

Like a crazy woman, I went back to the local farm to u-pick more strawberries. Our cupboards are stocked with jam and I am getting tired of standing over the stock pot stirring. So this round I decided to just freeze them all – easy and versatile.

I lightly rinsed the berries, since they can be little sponges and soak up excess water. I then hulled the tops off and set them out in a single layer on a cookie sheet. They went into the freezer for a few hours until totally frozen. Then I rolled them off the sheet and into a plastic freezer bag. This freezes them as individual berries, instead of one giant block. That makes it really, really easy to measure out what you need as you need it.

Pearl, our 7+ year old Americana, laid a really funny looking egg the other day. It was under-sized and crooked. She seems otherwise healthy and has been laying eggs since then that have looked normal. We also got our first duck egg from Gladys!

For breakfast, I decided to whip up something using our funny shaped eggs and the frozen berries. I have been craving a huge pile of waffles using this great recipe from AllRecipes.com. I made up a strawberry compote/sauce for the topping.

Strawberry Sauce

• 2 cups frozen berries
• 1/4 cup orange juice
• 1/4 cup sugar (or less)
• 2 tsp. cornstarch
• 1/2 tsp. vanilla

1. Mix berries, juice, sugar and cornstarch in a small saucepan and bring to a boil.
2. The berries will fall apart as they cook, but you can mash them to desired consistency. Boil hard for a couple minutes to thicken.
3. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla. Serve warm over waffles, pancakes, biscuits or ice cream.

The great thing about frozen, local berries is that they taste so close to fresh when they get cooked up. I ate about two waffles before I couldn’t fit anymore. With blueberry season just around the corner and raspberries coming on just now, it’s going to be a morning-berry-bonanza around here!