Memorial Day weekend is traditionally the pinnacle of strawberry season here in the DC area, though our earlier-than-usual spring means we’ve already been enjoying them for weeks. (As evidenced by, well, my last ten posts, give or take…). Assuming you’re not sick of them yet, here are a few favorite places to get out and pick your own in Northern Virginia:

• Great Country Farms Bluemont, Va. (note: GCF charges admission, but is basically a farm adventure land for the kids. Check the website to see about special events.)
• Hollin Farms Delaplane, Va. (also has pick-your-own seasonal vegetables)
• Wegmeyer Farms Hamilton, Va. (see comments below)
• Westmoreland Berry Farms Oak Grove, Va. (on the Northern Neck, they serve barbecue fare and ice cream/strawberry shortcake in season)

A few things to note for a successful berry picking trip:

• Go early and ALWAYS call ahead to check picking conditions. The farms around here tend to get picked out quickly on nice summer days, and this weekend is sure to be busy.
• Dress the kids in dark colors (or red) to avoid stains and wear appropriate footwear (e.g., not the flip flops my toddler refused to change out of. They were new, after all, and a girl can’t be separated from her new shoes.).
• Bug spray and sunscreen/sun hats are a must.
• You can’t plop a toddler down in a field of the freshest berries she’s ever seen and not expect her to nibble — so be courteous and round up your tab at check-out to cover any excessive in-field consumption.* And if you hope to have enough leftover for jam, you might want to buy twice what you think you’ll need.

We went to Wegmeyer Farms earlier this week, an easy under-60-minute drive from Arlington, and loved it. The berry patch is a manageable size (and easy walking distance from parking) for younger kids. There are a couple picnic tables but unlike some of the larger farms (Great Country and Westmoreland have full-service concessions) you’ll have to pack your own lunch.

The 19th Annual Delaplane Strawberry Festival also takes place this weekend, May 26-27, if you just want to spend the day in the country and celebrate nature’s most perfect berry.

If my kids leave any, we’ll be making strawberry shortcake this weekend. You?

*The foodie tot heard the farmer say, “Go ahead and taste ‘em,” and promptly shoveled three in her mouth.

I still can’t believe how early strawberry season began this year. We got our first Virginia berries of the year at the Falls Church Farmers Market last weekend, and a few more this weekend. The foodie tots have been ecstatic. The first week, they downed a pint at breakfast as soon as I returned from the market. This past weekend, the toddler went with me and somehow managed to leave strawberry stains on the front and back of her t-shirt, and stroller seat, just while snacking on a few as we shopped. (She was also a big fan of the fresh mini cider doughnuts from Mama’s Donut Bites, new at the market this year. Also spotted: asparagus, ramps & morels — the locavore’s holy trinity of spring.)

I’ve been wanting to make horchata, a frothy rice-based drink I first tasted in L.A., for an embarrassingly long time. Like, since my last trip to L.A. In 2009. Ahem. Anyway, the drink is simple enough to make but requires advanced planning and patience as the ground rice and water must soak overnight. So it’s a good opportunity to give the kids a lesson in delayed gratification. It’s a fun recipe for kids who enjoy pressing the buttons on the blender, too. It’s lighter than a smoothie and its sweet, refreshing taste goes well with spicy tacos.

While some recipes call for almonds, I chose one that used only rice to keep things simple. I added fresh strawberries which helped sweeten the drink, so it requires less added sugar. (If your berries are very sweet, you may get away with using even less sugar.) You may be tempted to taste the preliminary soaked rice concoction …. (I confess, I did it.) If you do, don’t despair. The drink vastly improves once sweetened. I don’t plan to let another three years pass before making this again — in fact, I’m already envisioning sipping a watermelon version on the deck later this summer.

Recipe: Strawberry Horchata
adapted from A Wooden Nest

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup long grain white rice
• 4 cups water
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 1/2 cup cane sugar
• 1 cup fresh strawberries, hulled
• 1 cup whole milk

Instructions:

1. Place rice in blender and grind to a fine meal. Add to water in a pitcher, drop in cinnamon stick and stir to combine. Refrigerate for at least 8 hours, preferably overnight.

2. Pour mixture back into the blender and blend until cinnamon stick is finely chopped. Pour through a fine mesh strainer, pressing on the rice solids to extract as much liquid as possible. Discard solids.

3. Return strained mixture to the blender and add sugar, strawberries and milk. Blend on high speed until well combined and frothy. Chill before serving.

Makes 4 servings.

Can’t wait overnight? Try our Strawberry Agua Fresca recipe.

We’re big fans of Dr. Seuss around here. The boy has been looking forward to PBS Kids’ Cat-in-the-Hat-a-thon all week — and, he even has the day off school so he can camp out in front of the tv in his pjs to watch. Meanwhile, I made a Seuss breakfast: Lorax pancakes, green eggs and ham, and pink ink. You know, of One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish:

This one, I think, is called a Yink.
He likes to wink, he likes to drink.
He likes to drink, and drink, and drink.
The thing he likes to drink is ink.
The ink he likes to drink is pink.
He likes to wink and drink pink ink. – Dr. Seuss

This breakfast smoothie is fast to whip up. And the best part — it’s all natural, no food dyes needed.

Recipe: Yink’s Pink Ink Drink

Ingredients:

• 1 cup frozen strawberries
• 1 1/2 cup whole milk
• 1 teaspoon honey (adjust to taste)
• 1 teaspoon ground flaxseed

Instructions: Place all ingredients in blender and puree until smooth and frothy. Pour into glasses, add a straw, and enjoy! Makes 2 small smoothies.

What’s the most read Dr. Seuss book in your house? Ours is probably Green Eggs in Ham, but One Fish Two Fish gets a lot of air time as well. Most exciting is that the boy is just about ready to start reading them to us — can’t wait!

I couldn’t let strawberry season pass us by without the obligatory sink-full-of-berry photo, er, recipes, right?

After being told one local farm was out of strawberries, I rushed to our neighborhood farmers market first thing last Saturday to grab half a flat from Black Rock Orchard. I made a small batch of freezer jam and a pint of strawberries in vanilla syrup, a la Simple Bites, to stash in the freezer for next winter. And the remainder were set aside for Sunday evening strawberry shortcakes.

Growing up, I spent just about every Father’s Day weekend at the local grange strawberry festival — consuming and later serving massive amounts of fresh strawberry shortcake. While I’ve yet to find a berry here that rivals those from Oregon, with a little sugar, vanilla and cream a homemade shortcake is just about as satisfying. I macerate the berries with a touch of balsamic vinegar to help round out the flavor.

Recipe: Strawberry Shortcake

Berries:

• 3 cups sliced strawberries
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar

Instructions: Combine berries, sugar and vinegar in a bowl and let stand at room temperature at least 30 minutes.

Biscuits adapted from Alice Waters via Ezra Pound Cake

Ingredients:

• 1 cup unbleached flour
• 1/2 cup white whole wheat flour
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 6 tablespoons cold butter
• 3/4 cup heavy cream

Instructions: Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Mix together flours, salt, sugar and baking powder in medium mixing bowl. Cut butter into small cubes, and use pastry blender or hands to work butter into the flour mixture until crumbly. Add cream and mix until just combined. Shape dough into a disc and roll out on lightly floured surface to about 3/4-inch thickness. Cut out 2-inch circles and place on parchment paper lined baking sheet. Bake for 15-17 minutes, until just slightly golden. (Makes 6 biscuits.)

To make shortcakes: Beat 1/2 cup whipping cream with 1 teaspoon vanilla paste or extract until soft peaks form. Split biscuits in half and place bottom half on serving plate. Top with 1/2 cup of strawberries, including a good sized drizzle of the syrup that has formed in the bowl. Place top half of biscuit on top, add a generous spoonful of whipped cream and a few more berries on top for good measure. Enjoy!

Thanks so much to our first Local Potluck Tuesday participants last week — . Please join in and share what local foods you’ve enjoyed this past week!

Local Potluck Tuesday — a few guidelines:
1. Share a relevant post — a recipe, menu or pictures of a meal featuring local foods, from the farmers market, CSA, farm stand or your own garden — using the MckLinky widget below. In the link title field, enter both your post title and your name &/or blog name, e.g., “Lemon Cucumber Salad — Colleen @ FoodieTots.”
2. Bonus points if you included your kids in picking, growing, purchasing or cooking the ingredients for the meal! (And by bonus points, I mean increased likelihood of seeing your post featured in the following week’s post.)
3. In your post, please link back to this post here at FoodieTots, so your readers can find the potluck and be encouraged to join in as well.

That’s it! I hope you’ll join in and share what you’re cooking up to celebrate our local farms and the wonderful food they provide to nourish our families.

It’s Farmers Market week here at FoodieTots, so stay tuned all week for market re-openings and seasonal recipes featuring farm fresh food from the Chesapeake Bay foodshed. Hooray for spring!

The rain held off most of the morning for the Del Ray Farmers Market (Saturdays, 8am-noon). New vendor Shlagel Farms had just a few of the season’s first strawberries. (We were too late for them, but the woman working at Three Way Farms’ stand reported bartering for their last box. Three Way will also have them next week.) Shlagel is a third-generation farm in the District suburbs (Waldorf, Md.) and had a wealth of potted plants and cooler of crisp lettuces. Three Way Farm had plenty of asparagus, and the farm from Riva, Va., returned this week with beets and peas (again, sold out early), broccoli and spring onions. Vera’s Bakery, a.k.a. the scone ladies, have new signage and expanded product offerings this year, including vegan cookies, fresh-squeezed orange juice, and these delicious pamonha (pictured), Brazilian tamales filled with corn and mozzarella. Marcela’s continues to do a brisk business selling their excellent chicken and beef saltenas — my favorite breakfast.

Unfortunately, the vendors at the West End Farmers Market (Sundays, 9am-1pm) grand opening were not so lucky, weather-wise, but they toughed it out despite the deluge. The library volunteers valiantly tried to entertain kids with the promised story-reading, but the Foodie Tot wasn’t going to stand in the rain unless there was food being offered. Poor Westmoreland Berry Farms was relegated to the far end of the lot and looked likely to be washed away in the storm drain overflow. (Her strawberries, though, are deep red and juicy thanks to all the rain this spring.) Tom the Cheese Guy brought his famous 7-cheese macaroni as a special “welcome back” treat (it’s usually reserved for winter months). Next to his booth (where soggy shoppers congregated under his tent with weather-protecting sides – smart purchase, Tom!) was North Gate Vineyard with their mostly Loudoun County-grown wines, including award-winning cabernet franc and petit verdot, and an apple wine. (What is it with Virginia wineries and fruit wine?) Lisa’s dog treats were a welcome reward for the pups whose owners dragged them out in the rain. Papa’s Orchard had Pink Lady and Fuji apples from last fall, while Medina & Son had more strawberries, radishes and a plethora of greens. Medina had potted flowers as well, and the flower guy has also returned with cut flowers.

New vendor Wisteria Gardens, of Berkeley Springs, WV, was another popular stop for kids and grown-ups alike with samples of their wonderful fresh salsas and hummus, including spicy and Indian curried flavors. They also had lovely fresh, pesticide-free spring greens and sweet pea shoots. Other new vendors included J-Wen Farms’s fresh Pennsylvania milk and butter, a sheep and goat farm selling wool and soaps, a flavored olive oil vendor, another soap vendor, two coffee stands, and Bonaparte bakery with the soups and pastries seen Saturdays at Del Ray. The Gourmet on the Go truck has returned with other goodies to round out your shopping, including local bison and ham. (Hillsdale will be returning with organic chicken, but was absent this week.)

Sure, the Alexandria markets don’t have quite the diversity of products as the bigger DC markets – though they get closer every year – but we do tend to get items like strawberries a week or two earlier thanks to our slightly more southern Virginia farmers.

Our first pints of strawberries are typically gobbled up whole before we have a chance to cook anything – in this case, we ate half a pint in the car while drying off – but I did make an all-local strawberry, “prosciutto-style ham” and spring green salad for dinner last night. Here are some of our favorite strawberry recipes from last year, which will be revisited soon:

• Strawberry, Kale & Mozzarella Salad
• Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp
• Strawberry Shortcake

& and check out the strawberry recipe round-up at The Whole Gang.

So, what did you find at market this weekend?

PS Local moms — pass this link on to your kids or spouse for a chance to win a mother’s day spa visit from Northern Virginia Magazine, deadline Weds. May 6.