What's your favorite way to eat strawberries?

The berries are coming in fast and furious around here.  My youngest has been taking a half dozen or so to school for snack every day, we've had them sliced on pancakes and cereal, and last night we had my mom and dad over for strawberry shortcake.

I've still got a few pounds of berries picked this weekend that won't last until Wednesday (well, not much past Wednesday, so I don't want to sell them at market and have them go mushy the next day - ripe berries only keep a few days, unlike store-bought ones picked before their peak). 

I'm thinking of making preserves tomorrow to bring on Wednesday if no one stops by the house to buy them today (I had so many in the fridge after picking yesterday I put a sign out on 179).

What's your favorite way to eat strawberries?  I can’t decide, but one of my favorites is shortcake with my grandmother’s biscuits.  Heck, as a kid I’d eat an extra biscuit plain for breakfast the next day though they are better with strawberries sprinkled with just a spoonful of sugar, and homemade whipped cream (definitely not a low-cal dessert!).  My grandmother (all of us called her Hon, something her boys picked up from their father) made dozens (hundreds?) of these every year for the Methodist church’s strawberry festival, and they weren’t even Methodists!

Hon’s Shortcake (in her own words)

3 cups flour

1 cup sugar

4 tsp baking powder

pinch of salt

1.5 sticks of oleo (margarine)

2/3C milk or half and half

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla to taste

 Sift the dry ingredients together, crumble in like pie crust 1 and a half sticks oleo, I always use Imperial*

Mix two thirds cup milk or half and half to which I have added an egg and vanilla. Add to dry mixture. 

Sometimes don't use all of the liquid, just moisten the mixture enough so it holds together but don't really stir it, the less handling the more tender the biscuit.

*(I think they’ve changed margarine/oleo since then, feel free to use whatever you like on bread, even unsalted butter.  If you use salted butter you may want to omit the salt in the recipe).

That’s where the recipe ends (getting a recipe with measurements and steps was hard enough, like most women who grew up cooking with their mothers prior to WW II, she assumed you knew what to do.  Most of her “recipes” were just lists of ingredients.).  But I drop these by spoonfuls (they do spread, but not a whole lot, they tend to be high and bumpy) on a lightly greased (use Pam) cookie sheet (again, I prefer an insulated one since I don’t like the bottoms really brown) and bake in a preheated 425 F oven until the tops are just getting lightly browned (some of the peaks may get a little darker, but don’t let them burn).  Maybe 10-12 minutes depending on how large you made them.

Let them cool slightly (or thoroughly, your choice) and split horizontally or just leave whole since they tend to crumble.  Put  biscuit in the bottom of a bowl, add a generous amount of strawberries and their juice (you HAVE sliced the strawberries and stirred in some sugar before you started making the biscuits, haven’t you?).  Top with whipped cream, ice cream, or just plain cold cream (wait, not COLD CREAM like you use to take off makeup!  I mean chilled cream or half and half) and enjoy!