Summer just wouldn’t be the same without strawberries.  Whether you add it to a salad, mix some into a glass of lemonade or create a complete strawberry dessert with them, you can’t go wrong.  So on today’s Homemade Is Best, we’re going to run down some of Helana’s favorite strawberry recipes.

First though, we have to know What’s Helana Excited About? Well, this week because of the topic of our show, Helana is excited about a strawberry stem remover.  It’s another in a long line of kitchen gadgets that are fairly single purpose, but make life in the kitchen a whole lot easier.  Definitely worth getting excited about.

On to the recipes!  We’ve got a lot of them this time.  First is a Spinach, Strawberry and Hearts of Palm salad.  It’s our first recipe from Paula Deen, the food network chef that is famous for Southern home cooking.  This one’s not light on calories, at least if you look only at the dressing, but spread over 12 servings it will be a stupendous addition to your next barbeque.  Next is a Summer Berry Pudding.  It tastes better than it looks, according to Helana.  How can it not with 4 different kinds of berries, one of which is strawberries of course.  It’s kinda like a bread pudding with a summer makeover.  The next recipe is one that is the stuff of dreams if you’re a strawberry lover.  It’s Helana’s Strawberry Cake.  It’s a homemade strawberry cake with homemade strawberry frosting.  Be sure to check out Russ’ attempt on the Homemade Is Best Facebook page.  The strawberry keeps on coming with an incredible looking Strawberry Shortcake.  Helana is using a homemade biscuit for this one that looks wonderful.  Very British.  Pip, Pip!   Finally, we end the recipe section with a mini lightning round of Strawberry and Dumplings and  the novel Chocolate Cupcakes with Flaming Strawberries.  Don’t burn your eyebrows off!

For our Basic Food Prep Term of the Week we learn what are hearts of palm?

For Email and Comments, we answer a question from Caroline Delahey who is starting a food blog.  She wanted to know about getting started writing.  Helana suggest the book, Will Write for Food.

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