Seeing Red

Yippee!  Tax time is over with.  I "got" refunds for all the people I did taxes for.  The last one is sealed up and on its way to Uncle Sam which means it's time to get back to more important things.  Like crafty stuff.  I sat at my kitchen table to do all this income tax nonsense.  And right next to me was this:

Is that nasty or what? 

I can't believe the Conductor continues to come over for my cooking with that thing lurking about. 

I've tried cleaning it millions of times with every product under the sun and the stains just don't come off.  So I decided to buy a new one.  Tarjay had similar ones for $8.  Call me cheap, but I think $8 is too much to spend on somthing that holds garbage.  What to do?  Well, I've seen lots of bloggers spray painting on plastic so I decided to give it a go:

Much better!  It matches my red kitchen walls and you can't see the stains.  Added bonus, I used a 50% off Coupon from Michaels so the paint only cost $3 with about half a can left for something else.  So $1.50 for a "new" garbage can is pretty darn good.  I just love how it looks.

But I love THIS view even better:

In other red events, the Conductor and I had dinner out the other night and came back for dessert.   I'm so itchy for my garden so this was a welcome sight:

Those are NOT fake strawberries with sugar on them.  And by fake I mean the storebought ones that are stiff as a board, and taste like nothing.  These are REAL strawberries grown in my yard that I froze from last year with some ice clinging to them.

Anyone that eschews fresh food and says that frozen foods or canned foods are "just as good" needs to come by and open up my container of frozen strawberries.  The first thing you'll notice is the BOLD RED color.   Real strawberries are supposed to be RED all the way through.  When was the last time you saw a completely red strawberry from the store?   Grocery store strawberries literally pale in comparison.  The second thing you'll notice is the smell.  Frozen since July, and still frozen as I worked with them, these berries gave off the most luscious smell - like I just picked them. 

You can't get real color and real odor out of a can. 

And you can't get REAL strawberry shortcake in April using frozen berries.  No sir.  I used the shortcake biscuit recipe from the 1963 edition of The New Good Housekeeping Cookbook.  I halved the recipe which gave just enough for two decent sized shortcakes. 

I threw the strawberries in a saucepan and sprinkled a handful of sugar over them and heated them up since they were still icy.  The sugar brought out the juices really nicely.  And it smelled delicous.  I also used REAL whipping cream with a bit of powdered sugar to make a chantilly cream.  I cut the biscuits in half, stuffed 'em with red and white.  And ended up with this:

Divine!