We’re so very lucky to live close to some amazing orchards and market gardens, including Naturipe Fruits, famous for their sensational Strawberries and Cherries. I’m not kidding you when I say that these are the best tasting strawberries and cherries that I’ve ever had – they’re sweet and full of flavour. It’s also a wonderful place to take children, especially little ones from ages 1 and up, as they are the perfect height to pick their own fruit fresh from the fields. This is also the ideal time when children can begin to learn about sustainable eating practices, and learn where their food comes from, why we must eat our food lovingly, and how to best look after our earth so that it, in turn, blesses us with nature’s abundance.
This year, we decided to buy two kilograms of ripe red strawberries (we could have bought double that, as they went in no time!) and set to work to find our favourite strawberry recipe. In the end we found three that we wanted to share! So here they are for you to try yourself, all whole foods and refined sugar-free, and great recipes to add to your Heartful Child cookbook collection.
- APPLE AND STRAWBERRY CRUMBLE
Such a super simple recipe which we just adapted from a few similar ones. The crumble is essentially a tolli mix (a yogic snack of dates and almonds blended up) and you can experiment and add in superfood extras such as flaxseeds, quinoa flakes, buckwheat flakes, or hemp seeds. We used enough fruit to fill the bottom of a baking dish and just hand squeezed the orange over the apple and strawberry mix. Both my children helped with making this, showing how simple it really is.
Ingredients
3 handfuls fresh strawberries
1 pink lady apple
2 tablespoons honey
1 teaspoon organic vanilla essence
Juice of 1/2 orange
For the crumble
1 cup rolled oats
1 cup almonds
8 fresh soft dates, pitted
6 tablespoons coconut oil (at room temperature)
1 pinch sea salt (I used Celtic)
Method
Preheat the oven to 175 degrees centigrade. Wash all the fruit and slice/ chop into small pieces. Place in a baking dish and toss with the honey, vanilla and orange juice.
For the crumble, place the oats, almonds, chopped dates, coconut oil and sea salt in a blender and blend until it becomes a fine mixture. Use your hands to sprinkle the crumble over the fruit, making sure to distribute it evenly across the apple and strawberries.
Bake for approximately 30 minutes or until crumble is toasted golden brown and the fruit is bubbling around the edges.
2. SCONES WITH SIMPLE STRAWBERRY JAM
Nothing says Sunday afternoon tea quite like scones, and of course fresh strawberry jam to top is ideal. This involves just three ingredients and full of happy summer flavours that will make you smile from the inside out. Simply serve with your traditional scones and cream if desired.
Ingredients
200g strawberries
2 tablespoons honey
Squeeze of lemon
Method
Combine ingredients in a blender and blitz until smooth and well combined.
3. STRAWBERRY AND RHUBARB FROZEN YOGHURT
Adapted from Green Kitchen Stories recipe, I didn’t use as much honey and also didn’t bother with an ice-cream maker as we don’t have one. Their recipe called from 300g of strawberries and 250g of rhubarb, but I found that this was a little too sweet for us and could have used less. Otherwise, it turned out fresh and flavoursome and a hit with my girls.
Ingredients
300g fresh strawberries
250g rhubarb
4 tablespoons honey
1 vanilla pod
2 cups Greek yoghurt
Method
Cut up rhubarb and strawberries and place in a saucepan with honey and vanilla pod. Cover and bring the the boil, then simmer for 10 minutes. Remove from the heat and break up with a fork or blitz with a hand blender. Chill in the fridge for min 1 hour. Combine yoghurt with the fruit compote, disperse evenly in a baking tin and freeze.
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