Fresh Strawberry Sundae Ice Cream Pie

This Fresh Strawberry Sundae Ice Cream Pie takes the flavor of a strawberry sundae and makes it easy to serve a small crowd all at once. Great for graduation parties, Memorial day cookouts, or just because local strawberry season should be celebrated.

Ice cream pies are a fun way to make a special dessert and still keep the house cool in the summertime. A few shortcuts (I use store bought everything but the local berries, but you could make each component from scratch) and you've got a sweet treat to eat with very little effort.

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Strawberry season has arrived here in Ohio, and it's the perfect time to appreciate the sweetness of a locally grown berry. Kick off the summer with this pie--you could serve it for a Memorial day cookout, or a graduation celebration, or just because you deserve a treat.

If you're new to making ice cream pies, I've shared a photo-rich How To Make An Ice Cream Pie At Home tutorial. I put my years of experience making ice cream desserts at Baskin Robbins to good use, and shared all the tips and tricks I've picked up along the way. You can find that ice cream pie recipe here.

My son is graduating high school today and family has flown/driven in for the occasion, so there's a lot more of us around than usual to commemorate the event. When you're a military family and move often, you tend to be a pretty self-contained nuclear family unit at school functions because you haven't been part of the community for generations.   

It was nice to fill up a pew at baccalaureate last night, even though I didn't have any tissues in my purse. You need an emergency chocolate or dog biscuit? Need to floss, have a cup of decaf tea, or repair a hem? I've got you covered. I have catheters and ear plugs, but do I have a hankie when I need one? No.

Red Potato Salad with Chive Blossom Vinegar

A recipe for new potatoes bathed in a chive blossom vinegar-mayo dressing and accented with carrots and parsley.

I've got a terrific potato salad today that celebrates the fresh flavors of the season. This perfect picnic side dish has the mild flavor of chive blossom vinegar paired with tender new potatoes. It's a great accompaniment to a cook out, graduation party, Father's day, or just because it's lovely weather outside.

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If you grow chives (simple--it's a perennial clump that you plant once and harvest for years) you'll have chive blossoms. Just like with my beloved garlic scapes, the blossoms are an edible plant part that's often overlooked.  I've already shared a few recipes using them (Chive Blossom Focaccia and Chive Blossom Potato & Egg Salad) but if you've got plenty, please make Chive Blossom Vinegar. It's got a great flavor and really adds to your dishes.

Do you have a vinegar hoarding problem, too? I've already got a bunch of vinegars in my pantry--rice wine, apple cider, balsamic, red wine--and white in the basement for laundry/pickling. Why make another one? Because it's easy, and it's fun. If you had access to enough chive blossoms (anyone want to give me some?) this would make a lovely gift. I was sad last year when the last of my vinegar was used up--mostly in potato salads--and will be glad when this year's batch has finished steeping.

Potatoes in so many forms are a staple for my family.  In the Fall we got a large volume of them from our Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share and I stored them in the basement. We've got a dry basement, and they lasted in baskets for a few months. So many dinners started with roasted potatoes, and of course on Thanksgiving I made my Make Ahead Irish Mashed Potato Casserole.

In the summer I switch to potato salads. My Confetti Potato Salad is the old family standby, but lately I've been using the chive blossom vinegar with it.  This time I wanted to play up the colors of the new red potatoes so I grabbed some parsley (planted next to my chives) and my mother's day present herb scissors (Amazon affiliate link) and went to town.

Robert Barker considers the backyard his own Edible Foodscape.

For more recipes using herbs, please see my Recipes Using Herbs Collection. Innovative titles are not my strong suit. For more recipes using potatoes, please see my Potato Recipes Collection.  These collections are part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient, a resource for folks like me eating from the farm share, the farmer's market, the garden, the neighbor's garden, and great deals on ugly produce at the grocery store.

What's Going On at Farm Fresh Feasts-Local Eating Talk, Dog School, and Chive Blossom Vinegar

I'm sharing an unusual-for-me post today. Normally I really try to provide value in my posts, to teach, to inform, to offer ideas for my readers.

Today, I've got nothing. Nothing but photos of what I've been up to lately. Most of these photos were taken by my spouse, like the one above of our front yard bun bun. We have 2 bunnies that have taken to hanging out in the front yard during the day. They like the cover provided by the daffodil leaves, the irises, and of course my Grandpa's sharpening wheel, used on his dairy farm in Wisconsin.

I don't mind the bunnies in the front yard because I'm not growing anything to eat there. As long as they stay out of the edible back yard we'll remain on good terms.  And if, like what happened last September, a bunny strays into the backyard and is caught by Simon and Robert Barker, well, we will provide that bunny with a proper burial. Because it lived.

So, no recipe today. No list of advice. Nothing really useful. Why? Well, for starters I spent my non-working hours last week finishing a slide presentation about local eating. I gave this talk at my local community center.

It was initially terrifying to stand up in front of 25 people and talk about stuff that's near and dear to my heart, but I'm very glad I did it. I learned quite a bit--including some cool graphics from the CSA Sign Up Day site--hey, value added--and I hope everyone got their money's worth. [It was a free class. I'd be happy to do it again.]

In other school news, Robert Barker completed dog school! My spouse returned from deployment in time to observe the last 2 classes and see RB in action. He said Robert looked eager to please but frequently clueless. That about sums it up.

Now, I've shared a recipe for a liver & rice dog food here, homemade without some of the strange stuff that goes into canned liver and rice dog food, but here's a simple way I'm turning some of my grass-fed beef liver into dog snacks.

Please observe this Basset hound successfully avoided multiple piles of dog treats on the floor while running, from a sit/stay, halfway across the store to come when I called him. Pleased as punch with my boy dog, I am.

More Value Added! To make easy liver snacks for dogs, simply thaw and rinse a package of beef liver under running water. Place a thin layer, maybe ½ inch, of water in a large skillet. Add the rinsed beef liver and turn the heat on to medium. Simmer the liver for about 20 minutes, turning once halfway through. Let cool, cut into dog bite sized pieces, and store in a jar in the fridge.

To store these treats I like to use a wide mouth pint jar closed with these plastic storage caps (Amazon affiliate link), and put one jar in the freezer and one in the fridge. Our dogs go crazy for these treats, which is a Good Thing as there are somehow 9 more liver packages in my newly-defrosted meat freezer. And 3 tongues. From one cow. Not sure how the math works out.


Finally, I'll close this post with the only thing I actually accomplished in the kitchen this weekend, other than coaching my son on How to Make a Pasty. [See, when you're on clear liquids for 2 days prior to your colonoscopy, you're not really into cooking. Or writing about food. Or editing photos of food. Or anything of the sort. Hence my silence. I'm all done, though, so it's back to usual for me. Tonight for dinner I made red wine beef stew and chive blossom muffins.]


I harvested my chive blossoms and I'm making Chive Blossom Vinegar. You can, too! I shared how on Instagram. You can see that image here.

The day after I added the vinegar to the blossoms. How pretty is this? Not done yet though.

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This post is linked up with Meghan's Week in Review!