Quick dinner and Strawberry Shortcake

After a quick trip to the Fish Elevator last Saturday, we got home to a still fairly sunny day. H and I wanted to eat on the patio again and were both feeling quite summery. As we still had some strawberries in the fridge, I decided to make stawberry shortcake. This was super easy to make as nothing was made from scratch! It was all just assembly. My excuse is that we don't have any equipment yet, although if I were really determined I could have cobbled something together just using a fork and an oven. Then again, sometimes it's easier just to do things the lazy way, right? So, I started with the strawberries. Just slice and toss in a bowl with some sugar to macerate, then chill in the fridge while baking the biscuits.

The green stuff is the recently discovered mint that's growing outside our back door. I thought they were just leaves! It was H, who got close to the leaves while trying to figure out how to turn on the tap (much more complicated than it sounds, I assure you!), who discovered that they were actually mint. So delicious and smells amazing! For the shortcake, I just used the Pillsbury Buttermilk Biscuits in a can. They were very easy to make. The only change I made was to sprinkle the tops of them with some sugar before baking to make them more suited to dessert. Once the biscuits are done, slice them in half, top the bottom part with some Cool Whip, and then top with the macerated
strawberries.

Then top with the other half of the biscuit, dollop on as much whipped cream as you like, and cover with more strawberries.

Add if that's not enough, add even more berries so it's overflowing onto the plate!

These tasted so good, and I still can't believe how quick they were to make! Maybe I'll keep making them this way even when i eventually get proper baking equipment!

Now, lest you think all we did was eat dessert, we also had a proper dinner. Again, it was one of those quick dinners that I turn to when I didn't really have anything planned out beforehand. Pasta! More specifically, beef sauce spaghetti. I don't think it can be called bolognaise. :) It's basically just toss everything in that's in the fridge. So, there were mushrooms, parmesan, cherry tomatoes, tomato sauce, onions, salt, pepper, soy sauce (yes, soy sauce!) and some worcestershire. And the ground beef, of course. This pasta never tastes the same whenever I make it, but it always tastes good. Perfect for a sunny evening out on the patio. Mmmmm....