Welcome to The Good Table At Home
By Kelly Knight, Marketing Manager for The Good Table
Welcome to our inaugural weekly communication, The Good Table At Home — a collection of recipes, gardening tips and ideas, spiritual touchstones, and community news. We’re hoping this helps us all feel a little more connected in these difficult and distanced times.
From the Garden
Some gardening tips for June:
If you have rose bushes, now is a great time to cut them to ensure they’ll bloom all summer long. When you put them in vases, be sure the leaves aren’t touching the water (to avoid rot & stinky vase water.)
Switch over to planting heat-tolerant lettuce varieties in the vegetable garden, and continue adding to your summer vegetables if space allows.
Install bird netting to keep birds away from fruit trees and plants.
Check your strawberry patch frequently for slugs, snails, and earwigs. Fertilize now for healthy plants and continued berry production. (And check out our strawberry shortcake recipe, later in this edition!)
In the Kitchen
The beginning of June always makes me crave Strawberry Shortcake. Strawberries are coming up both in my garden and at the market, so I decided to use them to make this wonderful, pretty easy recipe. It uses a simple drop biscuit for the shortcake, which only took me about 20 minutes to make.
Strawberry Shortcake
Recipe from Smitten Kitchen. If you’re looking for a gluten-free or dairy-free recipe, try this one from Gluten-Free Palate.
Ingredients
SHORTCAKES
2 1/4 cups (295 grams) all-purpose flour
2 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
3 tablespoons (40 grams) granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon fine sea or table salt
6 tablespoons (85 grams or 3 ounces) unsalted butter, cold, cut into chunks
2 large egg yolks (you can also use one whole egg instead)
3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons (205 ml) heavy cream
3 tablespoons (35 grams) raw or turbinado sugar
TO FINISH
1 pound (455 grams) strawberries or mixed berries, hulled and halved if large
2 tablespoons (25 grams) granulated sugar, or more to taste
1 tablespoon (15 ml) fresh lemon juice (optional)
1 cup (235 ml) heavy or whipping cream
DIRECTIONS
Make shortcakes: Heat oven to 400 degrees F. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.
In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, granulated sugar, and salt until thoroughly combined. Add butter and using your fingertips or a pastry blender, break it into small bits, the largest should be no bigger than a small pea. In a small bowl, whisk yolks with a splash of cream, then pour rest of cream in and whisk to combine. Pour into butter-flour mixture and use a rubber spatula to mix and mash it together into one cohesive dough.
Divide dough into 6 (for large, 3 1/2 to 3 3/4-inch wide and up to 2-inch tall) shortcakes or 8 smaller ones. I do this by pressing the dough somewhat flat into the bottom of the bowl (to form a circle) and using a knife to divide it into pie-like wedges. Place raw or turbinado sugar in a small bowl. Roll each wedge of shortcake into a ball in your hands and roll it through the raw/turbinado sugar, coating it in all but a small area that you should leave bare. (I found that the sugar underneath the shortcakes would burn, so better to leave it off.)
Place it, bare spot down, on the prepared baking sheet. Repeat with remaining wedges of dough. Bake for 15 minutes, until lightly golden all over. Let cool completely on tray or on a cooling rack.
While cooling, prepare fruit and cream: Mix berries, 2 tablespoons sugar (more or less to taste), and lemon juice, if desired, in a bowl and let macerate so that the juices run out.
In a larger bowl, beat cream until soft peaks form. Add sugar to taste, or leave unsweetened, if that’s your preference.
To serve: Carefully split each cooled shortcake with a serrated knife. Spoon berries and their juices over bottom half. Heap generously with whipped cream. Place shortcake “lid” on top. Eat immediately and don’t forget to share.
