On Fourth of July morning, my boys and I headed to our local you-pick strawberry farm to stock up on berries for the weekend’s festivities.

It was eighty and sunny — gorgeous picking weather, and we got a little carried away with plucking and piling those crimson beauties.

We loaded twenty (yes, TWENTY!) pounds of berries into the van, and gorged our faces on the way home.

I say with certainty that there are no adjectives for these berries. Divinely ripe, sweet, juicy, scrumptious, delectable to the third power.

Smell that? I wish I could mail you some right now.

After eating gobs of berries all that evening and the next morning, I figured I’d better decide what to DO the with the remaining eighteen pounds of fruit looking all hopeful on my kitchen island.

THEN, my brilliant friend Jenny reminded me of the blueberry crisp recipe in Shauna Niequist’s book, Bread and Wine (read this book!).

Naturally, I promised I’d report back on how the crisp works out with strawberries.

Oh. My. Stars.

Make this crisp for dessert tonight — then make it again tomorrow ‘cuz there wont be a crumb left.

Here’s what you do (and it’s SIMPLE!)

Clean and slice 4 cups of strawberries. Spread them in an 8×8 dish.

Prepare the crisp topping. Shauna’s recipe calls for olive oil, but I’m a huge coconut oil fan, so I went for that instead. If you want the crisp to taste lightly coconutty like I did, use unrefined oil. (For little to no coconut flavor, select refined oil.)

Coconut oil is solid at room temp, so liquefy it in a warm saucepan.

Stir in oats, nuts (Shauna uses pecans, but I thought walnuts would be just perfect with strawberries, and they were), almond meal, maple syrup, and salt.

Bake for 35 minutes, and don’t even try keeping your kids out of the kitchen once they start smelling this bliss.

I know I said you should make it for dessert, but honestly, with a dollop of vanilla Greek yogurt and a sprig of mint from my garden, this crisp was my breakfast — and maybe my lunch too.

Serve it in a bowl and eat it with a spoon so you don’t miss a drop of dribbly goodness.

***

Here’s the cut and dry version:

Strawberry Crisp

4 cups berries

Crisp topping:

1 cup old fashioned oats

½ cup pecans

½ cup almond meal (finely ground almonds).

¼ cup maple syrup (Go for the good stuff. I used Hawk’s Nest — a local treat)

¼ cup liquefied coconut oil

½ tsp salt

Instructions

Pour four cups fruit into 8×8 pan. Spread prepared topping over fruit. Bake at 350 degrees 35-40 minutes, until fruit is bubbling and topping is crisp and golden.

Shauna’s recipe says it serves 4-6. I’m gonna go with 4 😉

***

Once I tasted this crisp, I knew exactly what to do with 24 more cups of strawberries. I cleaned them, sliced them, and froze six 4-cup portions for future crisps.

When I make this dessert in the January deep freeze, I hope I remember Fourth of July morning — that sunny field, my boys in their car seats with bright red drool streaking their chins, and berries strewn across my lucky kitchen.

❤ Stacy

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