Smolak Farms Strawberry Festival

I had been wanting to go strawberry picking sometime this summer and was excited to find out that a strawberry festival was going on at a local farm on the day I had been planning on going! Smolak Farms is only about a 20 minute drive from where we live, but it was the first time we had ever been there.


By the time we got into the strawberry field to start picking, we found that almost all of the strawberries were already gone! There were a lot of people in the field and a lot of empty baskets. Craig decided to head to a corner of the field that was a little unkempt and weedy, but where no one else was picking. That was where we hit the jackpot! We were whispering and trying not to appear too excited so that no one else would notice what we had found. We went home with over six pounds of strawberries!




I made strawberry jam for the first time in my adult life. I have made it hundreds of times before, but not since I was about twelve years old and not without my mother! I ended up with a little over three pints.












I also made this Strawberry Lemon Curd Tart to go with our first smokin' party of the summer. It was supposed to have a different crust than the one pictured here, but I somehow didn't inherit my moms skill of making pie crusts. The original crust ended up in the garbage and I substituted a simple graham cracker crust.

We started out the meal with Dates with Goat Cheese Wrapped in Prosciutto. We had experimented with these the night before and ended up substituting boursin for the goat cheese and putting them on the grill instead of under the broiler. Craig smoked three racks of ribs. Our friends Gordon and Jill brought over homemade cornbread and an Asian-style slaw (that was really yummy!) We rounded out the meal with some corn on the cob and baked beans that Craig put in the smoker with some bacon that he also smoked. Craig's ribs were his best yet!