Summer to me is a big batch of strawberries sitting on my kitchen counter waiting for me to dive into. Whether it be the classic strawberries and cream, strawberry and creme anglaise tart or making jam to be spread on hot buttered toast, I love strawberries.

The one thing that can not be beat is picking them fresh from the field and eating over half the pickings in the car on the way home. Something I have to keep on reminding myself is that I always need to make sure that we pick twice as much as I think that we are going to need to account for the ones that get away in the car.

Tonight for dinner I made Coq Au Vin, with couscous. Whilst the oven was on as I am in thrifty mode with holidays looming I oven roasted some pork chops with carrots, onions and mushrooms and served chassaur style with some stock, wine and a touch of cream with pasta tat was tossed in butter with some fresh herbs from the garden.

I made enough so that we could all eat tonight and there were 4 meals leftover packed into Tupperware boxes ready for lunches over the next couple of days.

My 3 year old son could not eat enough of it, officially coq au vin is his new favorite meal (until tomorrow possibly)

Desert were some strawberries (from tesco as the farm does not open for pick your own until Friday) and they were not the sweetest that I have tasted and so sprinkled a little caster sugar and a teaspoon of balsamic vinegar over them, left them to rest for an hour and then we had them for desert. According to my two children (pictured below) they were Very Very nice!