Baking in season

It’s not exactly pineapple season, but the strawberries are coming in by the truckload. So I sought inspiration.

Virginia suggested strawberry-pineapple jam. I know she has a slow cooker, so I was a bit worried about whether I could cook down the fruit without one, without burning them. But I do have a fine pan for such things. I bet I could do it.

More importantly, how do you say “pectin” in Portuguese?

Then Luiz asserted we should just have a sweet strawberry-pineapple tart instead. (He loves my pie crust, so this is a predictable request.)

Personally, I don’t think I have ever tasted the strawberry-pineapple combination. I was worried about the acid content. But Virginia assured me the acidity cooks out…

So I went for the tart.

Basically you make a sweet crust, slice up the fruit and mix it with a bit of sugar (I used Splenda, Luiz is diabetic), cook the fruit down a bit to get it all soft and to infuse the sugar/sweetener, then make up a package of vanilla pudding. Mix the fruit and pudding, pour it into your crust, then refrigerate until set.

Then slice it up and eat it with late night television.

Sorry I don't have a pic of the final product. It was more tasty than beautiful... but it was certainly fabulous.

S