Fresh Fruit Salsa

I know, I know...another strawberry recipe. Last week there was a strawberry BOGO sale at Farm Fresh; and WHO can pass up a summer fruit sale? (Boys don't count.)

Now, first you should know that I have a very loving, yet intense, relationship with bananas, but a girl needs space and too much of one thing just isn't healthy! So when berries start coming into season, I wander...I feel bad, I really do. However, the thing to keep in mind is that I always come back to bananas.

Anyways.

Sweet Friendship & Strawberry Almond Country Cake

As it happens, baking not only contributed to me winning Boyfriend’s heart, but was also a huge part of another meaningful relationship during college.

Truly, it was our sorority that brought Sarah and I together…along with Spanish class, working at the on-campus coffee shop together, and at ONE point—not now, thank goodness—both dating guys in the same fraternity. Sophomore year, I got it in my head that I wanted to make applesauce...yes, applesauce. I told Sarah about this hankering of mine during a shift at the coffee shop, and she thought it was a fun idea, so we made it a date. (My very first baking date!)

We were SO excited. So excited, in fact, that we were standing in front of the oven burners for a good 20 minutes waiting for the pan of apples and water to boil before we realized that SOMEONE had turned on the wrong burner (It wasn’t me…It was her apartment!). Eventually, and miraculously, the applesauce came together and we proudly walked a bowl of it around our dorm, trying to get everyone to try it.

Jump forward about a year…

It all started with a chocolate chip cookie...

Hi, friends and followers! With this being my very first entry, I felt it was appropriate for me to start at the beginning. When did my obsession with eating food officially develop into a passion to bake?

It started with a chocolate chip cookie...and a boy.

Fall semester of junior year, I was setup on a semi-blind date for a military college's ring ball. And believe it or not: this blind date turned into a real date, and that real date eventually turned into a relationship. Boyfriend—as I will refer to him here on out, unless he has another preference—was sweet in every sense of the word (still is!). At some point in the beginning of our courtship, he asked me to send him chocolate chip cookies. Being that I was his new girlfriend, I felt the extreme need to bake to impress. I was home for the weekend and spent hours searching the web for what I thought would be the best cookie OF ALL TIME that would in turn make me the best girlfriend OF ALL TIME.