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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.