Cheesecake Strawberries

Hey Sweetie!

I am so tickled--the sun is finally shining after several days of rain!  While there has been much flooding, even some in the fields at our farm, the water drains fairly quickly and I expect to be out digging in the dirt soon.

When we moved here, I had many things I wanted to get better at.  One of them was cooking delicious and healthier food and more often.  Before we moved, I had spent hours coming up with menu plans for each week of the summer.  As I mentioned before, we make dinner (lunch) our big meal, and then we have a lighter supper.  Pinterest has been my go-to for meal ideas.

Well, the best laid plans, etc, etc.  I am finding that it is more cost effective for me to buy on sale then to go with a set list of ingredients for specific meals.  Since we do not have our freezer or pantry built up and our garden is not even planted yet, let alone producing, I have very little in the way of flexibility in terms of "Oh we are supposed to have flank steak, and I bought that on sale back in March".

Additionally, my menus were made before we realized that Precious has celiac disease.  This means many recipes will have to be tweaked or tossed.

I must say on many things I am flexible, so this is not too big of a wrench :)  I will just cook what I have, and someday the menu and the stocking will meet up. :)

One thing I really wanted to do is to have a nice snack at about 3 pm.  I love the idea of having a small perfect bit of numminess to take the edge off before our light supper.  One of my first snacks were cheesecake strawberries--a recipe I got off of Pinterest.

Cheesecake Stuffed Strawberries

1 Lb Large Strawberries (I used one of those clamshell sets of strawberries)
8 oz cream cheese, softened
6 TBS (to taste) powdered sugar (the recipe calls for 4-5 TBS, but I found that not quite sweet enough)
1 tsp Vanilla Extract
Demerra Sugar (the recipe calls for graham crackers, but we did not have any gluten free ones)

Pick large, firm strawberries.  While it is tempting to try to use the more flavorful medium or smaller or very ripe ones, that does not really work with this recipe.
Core the strawberries.  I used one of those "apple peeler/corer" things and it worked wonderfully.
Mix all the ingredients except the demerra sugar.
Place in a piping bag (or, do as I do, and use a quart sized ziplock with a LARGE decorator tip pushed through a corner and secured by a ring).
Squirt the cheesecake filling into the strawberries.
Sprinkle with demerra sugar.

Easy peasy. 

This was a pinterest success story.  Not only was it easy, it was quick and tasted wonderful.  And it is pretty enough to serve to guests.