Strawberry Shortcake

Alright, people. It's summer, and you should be eating strawberry shortcake. I don't mean the half-assed kind, with the weirdly circular Yellow number 5 cakes from the grocery store and Cool-Whip, but the real thing. It couldn't be easier, and I'm not even going to include a proper recipe because it's really so painfully easy that you don't need it.

1. Macerate yer strawberries. This just means that you cut them up, sprinkle sugar and maybe some lemon juice (if you have a lemon*) on them, stir (maybe moosh some of them up a little, I like that) and let them sit in the fridge for a couple of hours while the juice comes out and mixes with the sugar to make a little bit of a syrup. Don't ask me about quantities or times, I've never measured anything in my life. I prefer to cook by the seat of my pants. You don't even really have to do this. Last time, I just mixed a little bit of sweetened frozen strawberries that I had thawed to make the strawberries a little syrupy and sweet. But, you HAVE to use mostly fresh strawberries.
   



2. Make yer shortcakes. I just use the recipe on the back of the Bisquick box. (I always have Bisquick around because I reallllly like pancakes, especially blueberry.) The Bisquick recipe takes literally less than 5 minutes to do. I think I even know it by heart. 2 and 1/3 cups of Bisquick, 1/2 cup of milk (soy milk works fine), 3 Tbsp. of melted butter, and 3 Tbsp. of sugar. (I admit it, I cheated to check the amounts. I was almost dead on, but I said 2 and 1/2 cups of Bisquick.) Stir it together, just until it's well mixed. Plop 6 blobs on a cookie sheet and bake it at 425 F for 12-15 minutes. I soooort of measured these things, but only using a one cup measurer, and none of it was precise in any way, and I know that I put more butter in than 3 Tbsp. The shortcakes came out perfectly anyway.




3. Whip yer cream. Put some whipping cream in a bowl with a little sugar and a teensy bit of vanilla, and whip it, either with a hand mixer or your arm. Doing it by hand is hard, but not impossible, especially if you freeze your (metal) bowl and whisk beforehand.




4. Plunk 'em all together on a plate and be happy it's summer.
   

I have neither the camera nor the skills to actually take my own food photography, which is really really hard, so I found a picture instead. Thanks to the person I stole that from.

*Real lemon juice only. The stuff in the plastic bottle just ain't right, don't use it if that's all you have. And why do you have that icky stuff anyway?