Strawberry Saturday

The big debate Saturday morning centered around strawberries.  The local ones are at their peak, and we couldn't decide - do we go to the Farmers Market and buy them, or go to the Strawberry Farm and pick them?  We split the difference and went to the Strawberry Farm to buy the ones they had already picked.  They are tiny and sweet and red-ripe to the core.  We came home with five gallons.

Hubby volunteered to wash and cap them for freezing if I would agree to make a strawberry cobbler.  Seriously?  Let me think...wash and cap and put up five gallons of strawberries...or...make a strawberry cobbler.  I let him talk me in to making the cobbler.

This cobbler is so easy I'm almost ashamed to tell you, and I will tell you that I debated on making it with hubby in the kitchen at the same time for fear that my secret would get out and he would realize I didn't slave over it.  All those years, I would take the thing out of the oven and then throw a little flour on my shirt and dust my nose with a little of it - just like the girl in the Rice Krispie Treat commercial - and THEN I would call out "cobbler's ready!".  He thought I was the greatest thing since sliced bread.

Anyway - here it is - the easiest dessert recipe known to man:

Simple Strawberry Cobbler

Place a stick of butter into a small ovenproof dish and put it in a preheated 350 oven to let the butter melt.

In the meantime, put 4 cups of fresh or frozen strawberries that have been washed and capped into a bowl.

Pour one and three-fourths cups of sugar over the berries...

then gently toss to coat the berries with the sugar.  Let these hang out while you make the batter.

Then, in a separate bowl, mix 1 cup of self-rising flour, 3/4 cup of milk, 1/2 cup of sugar and a teaspoon of vanilla.  Whisk it together.  It will look like pancake batter.

And now for the fun part.  Remove the baking dish from the oven with the melted butter in the bottom.

Pour the batter into the middle of the dish.  DO NOT STIR!!!  I mean this.  Don't go thinking on your own - just do it.  It should look like the picture, below...

Then - and, again, just go with me on this - dump the bowl of sugared strawberries into the middle of this batter/butter.  Be sure to scrape all of the good strawberry goo out of the bowl and let it ooze over the berries.  It should look like this...

IF YOU MUST...gently take a strawberry or two and pull toward the edges of the dish...but if you try to stir or swirl the thing, then I, along with Paula Deen and Rachel Ray and Martha Stewart and Dr. Phil, will all come to your house and have a word with you and it won't be pleasant.

Now, put it in the 350 oven, just like you see it here, and walk away for 40 minutes or so.  The batter will bubble to the top during baking.  Depending on your oven, feel free to check on it after a half hour or so.  What you want is a golden brown topping.  Don't worry if your topping is broken with streaks of fruit juice bubbling up through the cracks - that is supposed to happen.  If the center isn't bubbling and doesn't look quite done, cover the edges with a little foil and bake until the center is ready.

Serve it warm with ice cream, or splash it with heavy cream.  You can do the same thing with peaches, blueberries, blackberries.  And just so you know - I took pity on hubby and helped him with the rest of the washing and capping and freezing. It was the least I could do.