Cooking with Ontario strawberries

I love strawberry season! I have great memories of berry picking in the summers with my dad, so I was happy to see that strawberries are in season here. Ontario strawberries are so good - small and sweet. I find sometimes the strawberries available at the grocery store are huge and kind of tasteless, but the ones we bought this week were perfect. I was afraid the berries would go bad before we could eat them all, so Sunshine and I set out to make some strawberry muffins today. I used Anna Olson's recipe from the Food TV website for stawberry banana muffins. That worked out well since I had some overripe bananas in the freezer to use up.

I let Sunshine stir the batter. She loves to bate bate (stir in Spanish) just like Dora. Looking good so far:












Watching muffins bake is always interesting. Maybe she was worried I'd burn them or something?
















The finished product. They looked perfect! The taste - well, I think I let Sunshine stir TOO much, because they were a bit...tough. I'll try again sometime and stir the batter myself.












Also of note - who knew that the strawberries container made such a good toy? Sunshine's using it to carry around some of her treasures, including an old IQ2000 handheld game with no batteries, her precious dog, one of Duke's soother's, and an under-ripe strawberry that looked interesting since it was kind of whitish-yellow in colour.

















Now that we've had some Ontario strawberries, I can't wait for Ontario corn! I think it's in season sometime in August, so you can bet we'll be having that. We couldn't get good corn in Halifax, so we'll have to make up for it by eating lots here.

p.s. Forgive the slightly odd layout. I'm still trying to figure this all out.

Sometimes I wonder why I leave my house. . .

I was excited about attending a BBQ yesterday to celebrate a family engagement. I don't get out often so it would be a good opportunity to socialize. What was I thinking? My normally angelic children were IMPOSSIBLE. Duke cried almost the entire time we were there and I couldn't calm him down. It was like he worked himself up to the point that nothing would settle him. I started a conversation with someone I hadn't met before, and I'm pretty sure I just walked away at some point, completely frustrated with my baby, not even excusing myself (that I can remember). Everyone was outside, but I took the baby inside hoping he'd calm down out of the sun and where it was quieter. Nope. I'm very good at figuring out what he wants/needs most of the time, but yesterday was not a good day.

Sunshine was just being a typical toddler, but she was feeling under the weather the night before so it was probably a mistake to take her to the BBQ. The Colonel followed her around for most of the party, so it's not like he got to sit and socialize much either. The next-door-neighbour's had their kid out in a wading pool, so of course she cried when we wouldn't let her go over there. Someone brought a small dog to the party (a pet peeve of mine) and Sunshine wouldn't leave it alone. I don't blame her - it was a cute dog - but I could tell the poor thing wanted to be left alone after awhile. But how do you keep a toddler away from a dog outside without physically restraining her? Redirection only works for so long. She also grabbed a slice of pizza off her great uncle's plate during dinner and ate it. I was so shocked at her behaviour that I sort of laughed (I was tending to the baby). I realized afterwards (and told the Colonel so) that it was a good teaching moment so we should have explained to her that the pizza wasn't hers and maybe asked her to apologize.

We went home right after food was served (I don't think I tasted my food - I just shovelled it in). I spent part of the car ride home in tears over my feeling like a shitty parent and a failure for not being able to control my kids. I also felt bad that my normally well-behaved kids seemed like impossible balls of tears and probably gave off a crappy first impression. I also worry that I came off as rude for hiding in the house and not talking to anyone. It's such a hard pull when my kids need me, though. It's not like I can ignore them.

At home, I was getting Duke ready for bed and he was cooing and smiling at me, just generally being cute. I was wondering why he couldn't be like that at the party! But I also thought to myself, "Ah - who cares about stupid parties?" I have this perfect little bundle here who needs me, and as corny as it sounds, when he grins at me it makes me feel like I'm doing SOMETHING right. So I may not be able to hold an adult conversation, but at least I can hold my baby's gaze long enough to melt my heart just a little bit.