Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Strawberry Fields






Today we went strawberry picking. The kids just love to do this. They could do it all day. If it weren't for those darned child labor laws I would have a real money making idea here. They just picked and picked and were happy to do it. I roamed around in the strawberry patches having my "free samples" when nobody was looking, wondering to myself how much dirt and pesticides it is ok to eat since I couldn't wash them. They tasted like sunshine. Not all all like the rubbery ones you can get in the grocery store. In fact, they reminded me of artificial strawberry flavoring, which is probably modeled after the way fresh picked strawberries actually taste, instead of the shipped across the country ones we are used to. When I dragged them out of there we were the proud owners of over 16 pounds of the lovely red things. That is a lot of fruit to figure out what to do with before it spoils. We made two pies, one for our dessert and one to give a neighbor we were making dinner for today. I hulled enough to fill 3 freezer bags for future smoothies. And we did step 1 for making 5 jars of preserves, they are in the pot right now. The kitchen was a crazy mess but we had fun working on it all. And still there is a huge tray of them left, I'll deal with those tomorrow, maybe strawberry shortcakes, strawberry salads, and strawberry ice cream. Berry Good!

3 comments:

Teacher Teacher! said...

I make freezer jam with my strawberries. In fact my kids wont' eat Smucker's (turns out it doesn't have to be good) so I have to pick enough to make jam for the year. Freezer jam is super easy, just follow the recipe on the Sure-jel box (you have to cook the sure-jel with water and sugar) or on the Certo Box (this is a no cook recipe but i have better luck with sure-gel). You can find you gel stuff at the grocery in fact most will make an end cap of this stuff with jars this time of year. Try Rasberry also it's the absolute best!

Anonymous said...

I agree with the freezer jam idea from momforthree. It has been several years since I made some, but it could be used in those wonderful oatmeal bars that your boys love. I once had a raspberry patch in my yard when the apple tree didn't hide the sun on them, and the freezer jam from those berries was the absolute best. I used glass jelly jars with screw on tin caps. Freezer jam doesn't keep very long once unfrozen.
Have you taken the kids to the Metro Beach bird watching area? A nice boardwalk through the marshland area. Invite me along for that one. love, Aunt Chris

Mindy said...

Ok so I made some freezer jam too. I used the Kroger brand of fruit pectin and the recipe that came in there. It was much easier than the other one I tried where I had to cook it twice and leave it overnight. Looks better in the jar too, although it seemed strange putting glass jars in the freezer. How do you know when it's gone bad?