Organic Dementia #5: Strawberry Overages

I admit I got off on a tangent the other day and I do apologize. I have a deep seeded empathy for small business owners that's only grown over the years. I'm not saying it's bad but I certainly don't mean to get preachy.

That said, my vacation's shutting down and I'm in a crunch to finish up some little things (laundry mainly) so this post will be mercifully shorter. I thought I'd take a crack at posting a couple recipes since this has all brought out my adventurous kitchen nature. Surely you've gotten the point by now that all these ingredients are organic where possible, so don't ask

Admittedly I sort of ripped off parts of this one from work. It's not at all identical but the idea is the same. It's a very quick salad that's pretty tasty and it's easy to throw together as long as you have the parts.

You'll need:

A couple handfuls of fresh spinach
Two or three strawberries
Shelled walnuts
Some sort of bleu cheese dressing
A mixing bowl

Slice up the strawberries. You can also crush the walnuts if you like. It tastes fine either way but it's a little easier to eat if you crush 'em. Throw everything in a bowl then give it a few good tosses. I use a bleu cheese vinagrette (bottled and organic) because it's not near as heavy and I'm not big on overly creamy dressing anyway. This whole process takes about four minutes, tops and it makes for a nice lunch. That trip to the McDonald's drive thru would take you five times as long.

Okay, so since I'm not overly wealthy, I have to be careful about waste. Fresh spinach and strawberries don't have a terribly long shelf life so I gotta use 'em within a week/ten days of purchase. Spinach is easy because it goes with everything. Personally I use it with pastas pretty much constantly. The trick with spinach is not to overcook it. Add it to whatever your making at the last possible second, give it a couple tosses then serve it. Otherwise you'll cook all the vitamins right out of it.

Strawberries were something of a trick for me. I ate that salad three days running then got sick of it but I had to use the fruit for something. I also had alot of green tea laying around from the last cold I had back in February. I don't usually drink green tea because it's got caffeine. I get that from my coffee in the morning and during the day, I'd rather have something cold so I stick with water. Strawberries...green tea...hmmmm.

Here's what I came up with. It's good. I fucked it up the first time around but I got it right yesterday. Keep in mind this won't be ready to serve until about six hours after you start.

You'll need:

Ten bags of green tea (I use Tazo)
Ten to twelve strawberries, sliced
A tray's worth of ice cubes
Eighty Oz. of water
5 tbs. sugar
A large pot
A big ass pitcher


Bring the water to a boil then remove it from the heat. Stir in the sugar until it dissolves completely. Drop in the tea bags and give them 45 minutes or so to steep. This will allow the tea to cool off a bit as well. In the meantime, slice up the strawberries and set them aside.

After the tea has steeped, drop the ice cubes in the pitcher and pour in the tea. This will shock the tea so it cools even more. Remove the remaining ice cubes right away so they don't fuck up the water to tea ratio. The tea should still be warm but cool enough to the touch. The point is that you don't want to cook the strawberries.

Drop in the strawberrries, leave a couple tea bags in the pitcher for flavor, then stick it in the fridge for a few hours, then drink up. It's good stuff. If you like your tea really sweet then you may want to add a little sugar but what I mixed in orginally was plenty for me.

Collect 'em, trade 'em, show 'em to your friends and in the meantime, take care.


"A man lies in his bed in a room with no door. He waits hoping for a presence, something, anything, to enter. After spending half his life searching, he still felt as blank as the ceiling at which he stared. He is alive, but feels absolutely nothing. So is he? When he was six he believed that the moon over head followed him. By nine he had deciphered the illusion, trading magic for fact. No trade backs. So this is what it's like to be an adult. If he only knew now what he knew then." - Pearl Jam