Strawberry Festival Desserts( click here for pictures)

(Please click the title for pictures!)

Every year around the middle of May, my mom and I wake up extra early, eat a good breakfast, stuff a travel bag with water and snacks, drive around the corner to the gas station and get a full tank of gas, hop on the Pacific Coast Highway and cruise up to Oxnard California for one of the nations highest ranked events -The California Strawberry Festival.

It has become a family tradition, even before I was born, to go every year to the Strawberry Festival, and each year it gets better and better. The event features everything from good music, crafty vendors, and award winning strawberry recipes.

Now since my mom and I are bonafide foodies, the first place we run to every year is the food court. And although most of the food there has strawberries tide into it one way or another, our favorite food to get is the calamari. There’s this one vendor that sells the best calamari on the planet. I mean it’s so good, we always get at least 3 orders of it!

As for strawberry themed food, you’ll see everything from the usual strawberry shortcake, strawberry crepes, strawberry lemonade, and chocolate dipped strawberries.

But as for the unusual you’ll find strawberry taquitos, strawberry popcorn, strawberry jalapeno poppers, strawberry shrimp skewers, strawberry nachos, and even strawberry pizza! Can you imagine that?

You all know how much us kids love pizza, and how much we looooooooooove strawberries so to combine them both into a unique dessert is just a BONUS!

So here I have my rendition of the Oxnard Strawberry Pizza. Every year the line to this booth is the longest out of all the non profit booths at the strawberry festival, and after tasting it, I see why. Enjoy!

Ingredients:
- 1 package of Pillsbury sugar cookie dough
- 4 cups of fresh sliced strawberries
- 1 cup of sugar divided
- 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla flavoring divided
- 8 oz of softened cream cheese
- A few dashes of cinnamon
Directions:
1. First macerate your strawberries- toss them with 1/4 cup of sugar, 1/4 teaspoon of vanilla extract, and one dash of cinnamon. Set them aside in the refrigerator.
2. Meanwhile, roll out your cookie dough into a circle at least 4 inches away from the edge of the pizza pan because as it bakes it will spread. Bake according to package directions, then let cool.
1. While the cookie crust bakes, prepare the topping for your Strawberry Pizza, by mixing together the softened cream cheese, 3/4 cup of sugar, and 1/4 teaspoon of vanilla extract, until creamy.
2. Once the cookie has cooled off, spread cream cheese mixture over it and top with macerated strawberries, and enjoy!Best served immediately.
May 26th, 2010 | ChefShauniece | 1 Comment | Tags: california, cheese, chef, cooking, cooks, cream, festival, for, how, icing, kids, macerated, make, nachos, oxnard, pizza, shauniece, strawberry, to