Everything Strawberries

Last weekend the boys and I went to Whittaker's Berry Farm to pick strawberries. Yum! As per usual the boys had a blast and spent more time stuffing their faces than putting the berries into our box to take home.

 

As far as I'm concerned though, that's OK with me as long as it keeps them from running up and down the rows and trampling on all the plants! This year I felt really confident that I had a good plan to use up all the berries we picked and prevent a bunch from going to waste. As much as the kids and I love strawberries, we really can't eat 13 pounds of them before they start to rot and in year's past I've found myself staying up until late at night prepping the berries to freeze just to discover that the entire bottom is a juicy, gooey mess. This year, I set aside a decent amount for us to eat out of hand and put that container immediately into the fridge (no icky, juicy berries for us this year!). I then got to work on my baking. I started with 4 loaves of strawberry bread. I discovered a really yummy recipe last year and made a bunch this year so I could freeze them. Unfortunately my first batch wasn't cooked enough, despite my toothpick coming out clean, and I had to toss out 2 of my loaves. I was pretty bummed about that so I didn't take a picture. My other 2 loaves are still in the freezer and I'm hoping they turned out better. I then made a batch of strawberry freezer jam which turned out beautifully. We'll be enjoying that all year!

Next I made a strawberry-rhubarb buckle. One of my favorite summer desserts!

After that I was starting to prep the rest of the berries for freezing when Chris asked if he could experiment making strawberry juice. Sounds tasty, right?

Well, the strawberry juice wasn't all that great on its own, but it was awesome when we added it to orange juice and lemonade.

We might have to pick extra berries next year so we can juice them and freeze that! Until then, we'll just wait for our raspberries to ripen and maybe experiment on them.