Strawberry Shortcake

For the past month, I have been buying groceries from Eugene Local Foods. It has been such a nice bridge between the end of the winter and the start of the summer CSAs.  However, when I am selecting the vegetables for myself, I tend to only buy staples (lettuce, carrots, collards) and do not experiment with a wider variety of offerings.  I do think that this is a great way to continue to buy local produce year-round, but I am so excited that today was the first day of Open Oak Farm summer CSA.  

It is so wonderful to come home with the cloth bag bursting with a variety of fresh produce including items I wouldn't self select.  (Can you hear me cheering?)  I'm looking forward to cooking with the garlic scapes, mustard greens, spinach, and bok choi on another evening.  But tonight I started with strawberry shortcake.  

I have so many memories revolving around strawberries, family, and friends.  Picking them, eating bowls of them, making jam, and eating strawberry shortcake. Yum.  I've requested strawberry shortcake as my dessert of choice for birthdays (even though my birthday is in late summer), a baby shower, and really any time we have fresh strawberries.  I think strawberries are best enjoyed in the company of people that I love.

I still have lots of buckwheat flour from our winter Lonesome Whistle Farm grain CSA, so I experimented with making my Grandmother's Biscuit recipe with some buckwheat flour.  Topped with a little whipped cream, milk, and of course strawberries it was delicious--especially shared with my family on a sunny Tuesday afternoon.  Maybe we can have strawberry shortcake for breakfast tomorrow too.

Grandma Marjorie's Strawberry Shortcake 

4 T butter
2 T sugar
1 c buckwheat flour (from Lonesome Whistle CSA)
1 c mixed wheat/white flour
2 T baking powder
1/2 t salt
3/4 c milk
2 pints strawberries (from Open Oak Farm and our garden)
1/2 pint heavy whipping cream
2 T sugar
2 t vanilla 

Mix butter and dry ingredients in a food processor.  Slowly add in milk and mix until dough hold together.  Place on floured cutting board and flatten.  Cut out biscuits and place on a greased baking sheet.  Bake 425F for 12-15 minutes.


Cut strawberries into quarters and sprinkle with approximately 1 T sugar and let stand to allow juices to run. 

Mix whipping cream, sugar and vanilla and whip until soft peaks form. 

Plate biscuits with strawberries and whipped cream.  Serve with soy or cow milk.  

Buckwheat Pancakes

My mom calls these the "best buckwheat pancake recipe" that she has ever found.  I really enjoy the taste and the texture of the buckwheat flour from our Open Oak CSA.  It's not as coarse as buckwheat flour that I have bought in the store so the pancakes feel more like a buttermilk pancake.

I was having a very difficult time getting my cast iron skillet on the right temperature for these pancakes.  On medium they were burning on the outside and were still gooey on the inside.  When I turned the temperature down just one "notch" the pancakes were cooking very slowly, not browning up on the outside and still gooey on the inside.  Unfortunately, I burned more pancakes than were cooked to a perfect golden brown color.  (In retrospect, I think I should have used small amounts of butter in between batches rather than cooking spray.)

The non-burned pancakes were delicious.  Even the burned one with blueberries were good to eat!

This recipe makes a huge amount of pancakes.  For my family, next time I think I'll halve the recipe.  I think I now have more in my freezer than we ate for our meal!

Buckwheat Pancakes 

1 c buckwheat flour (from Open Oak Farm CSA)

1/2 c wheat flour
1 1/2 t baking powder
1/2 t baking soda
1 c buttermilk (or sour milk)
3/4 c milk
1 T honey
2 eggs
2 T oil
1 banana mashed
1 c blueberries (optional) 

Mix dry ingredients together.  Mix wet ingredients together separately (including mashed banana), and then add to the dry.  Mix thoroughly before cooking. 

Buckwheat pancakes

Cinnamon Buckwheat Waffles

We have several bags of buckwheat flour from our CSA boxes. We could easily have buckwheat pancakes or waffles every weekend for the next six months and still not run out. It's delicious but not a grain that I'm used to having in such large quantities in our house.

Sometime ago when we first came home with fresh buckwheat flour, I found this recipe online, and adapted it just slightly to use straight buckwheat flour rather than a pancake/waffle mix.

It's always a good idea to check the ingredient list before starting to bake or cook. I know this, but I often forget this simple rule. Thank goodness that we have very nice neighbors who we can call on a Saturday morning to borrow baking powder and cinnamon. Without baking powder the waffles are much too dense--just a little bit of baking powder makes a big difference so they were nice and fluffy.

We ate the waffles with vanilla yogurt, Nutella,

Greek yogurt,

butter, and maple syrup.

Yum! I think that it is okay that we have enough flour to make waffles or pancakes every weekend.

Cinnamon Buckwheat Waffles

1 3/4 c buckwheat flour (from Open Oak Farm)

2 c oats

1 T baking powder

1/4 t salt

2 T brown sugar

2 T cinnamon

2 eggs

1 3/4 c milk

1/2 c butter melted

Mix dry ingredients together. Melt butter. Mix milk and eggs together. Add wet ingredients to the dry ingredients. Mix well. If the batter is too thick, add more milk. Bake according to waffle iron directions.