Strawberries

Tempting desserts served in the hotel restaurant; strawberry and hazelnut slice

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With the aim of trying to increase the proportion of food we produce for the hotel restaurant we planted various types of soft fruit including strawberries in the winter of 2007. Last year we harvested a small crop of strawberries from those plants which then had only been planted six months. This year with the strawberry plants eighteen months old we are getting bumper crops, picking over a kilo of fruit a day.

Strawberries in the vegatable garden waiting to be picked.

It’s actually quite a lot of strawberries for us to use fresh in the restaurant at the moment even though it is almost full most nights. So as well as serving fresh strawberries, Joe is making a lot of mouth watering deserts such as a strawberry and hazelnut slice or a meringue biscuit with strawberries and a kirsch cream. She is also preparing strawberry ice cream and strawberry sorbet and even strawberry jam which can be used later in the year.

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Freshly picked strawberries

When we have a lot of one particular produce coming from the garden Joe is very talented and imaginative in finding different ways of serving it. So last week strawberries were even included in the salad bar in a rather adventurous dish consisting of strawberries in modena vinegar with asparagus, an asparagus and mint jelly and leaf beet. All very tempting.

Imaginative salads

Buen aproveche.