I get all giddy about strawberry season. I love me some strawberries, and so does my little Pitter Patter. We eat a bushel of them at our house each week. There are times that this can be a very expensive habit! I almost stroked out at the Piggly Wiggly the day they were $6.99/pint. Had to pass on by them that day.

However, it the last week strawberries have come down to less than $2 per pint. I came home from the Western Supermarket warehouse sale with six pints the other day. Since we have eaten our store of strawberry champagne jam from last year, I decided to replenish. Today is the day that I finally have some free time to can jam, and wouldn’t you know it – we’re all out of champagne! Now, normally I don’t make a special trip to the grocery for one ingredient. Goodness knows I’m in there enough as it is. But, y’all, this is one recipe that is worth the extra trip. Homemade strawberry jam is yummy, but when you add in a cup of champagne, it becomes gourmet. Heavenly. Divine. Nectar. Worth the trouble to get dressed, break away from schoolwork, and load the girls up in the car.

I’m sure that if you are reading this from anywhere in the sunny south, you probably have beautiful strawberries available for dirt-cheap in a grocery near you, too! Go get some and make strawberry champagne jam. You’ll love being able to pull it out during the long, cold days of winter!

Y’all, I love my crock pot. I know that’s not really NEWS, because I have loved my crock pot for a long time. It is just so easy on our busy, busy days to throw something in there and let it go ’til dinner time. I kind of have my rotation of crock pot recipes that we use and I know are good, but we needed a change of pace. I saw a video of Paula Deen doing pinto beans in her crock pot, and they looked yummy. We tried it, but just didn’t enjoy it as much as we thought we would. It needed way more spice for our taste. We finally decided that what we really wanted was red beans and rice. The problem is, I’d never done them in the crock pot. Hmmm…

Here’s what I came up with:

1 lb dried red kidney beans, rinsed and soaked in water overnight
1 ham steak with bone
1 onion diced
4 stalks celery, diced
4 cloves garlic, smashed and diced
1/2 cup-ish Creole seasoning, adjust spices to taste
3 cups cooked rice

After my beans had soaked overnight, I poured off the water and put the beans into my crock pot. I mixed in the onion, celery, and garlic. I covered all of this with the creole seasoning and mixed it well. I covered the mixture with water and tossed in the ham steak (I cut mine so it would fit better). I happened to have a little leftover Conecuh sausage that I threw in, just because we like it. I have also used crumbled sausage in my red beans and rice before and we love it. Use whatever you have on hand and your family likes. Cook it on low for 8 hours, serve it over the cooked rice, and you will have a delicious, fairly healthy dinner.