No strawberry left behind

When I realized that I still had almost a dozen jars of strawberry jam in the freezer, I had to come up with other uses for the two boxes of strawberries we picked. Well.... it wasn't that hard really.

After pureeing strawberries with a bit of simple syrup in the Vitamix it was easy enough to make popsicles. A nice treat for these hot summer days.

You HAVE to have strawberry shortcake.

I like milk and whipped cream on mine.

And a new use for strawberries for me... frozen strawberry drink. All I did was blend strawberries, ice and simple syrup in the Vitamix and viola! A refreshing, delicious beverage.

We were having them everynight until I ran out of strawberries. No problem using up berries at our house.

Strawberry pickin'

It's strawberry season!!!

We picked two containers with making jam in mind. Turns out we still have about ten jars in the freezer so we will be eating all these strawberries in fresh goodies.

Aaron always finds the monster berries.

Case in point.

I like finding the classic perfect berry.

Monster strawberries

After signing up for the local strawberry U-Pick email alert and calling the strawberry hotline on a daily basis, I found out that they started strawberry picking... on the day before we were leaving for vacation.

I thought to myself... welp... that's it. There won't be any strawberries left by the time we get back home. The day after we returned from the beach, I checked... and they were still picking! We hustled out to the field right away.

Look at the size of this strawberry!

It was a MONSTER strawberry. I almost hesitate to eat it because I wonder what made it so huge?

We can't help but pick the strange and weird strawberries.

We didn't pick as huge an amount as we usually do, just enough for some snacking, a pie and some freezing.

Oh, and a batch of strawberry basil lemonade.

Start of summer chalkboard

I refreshed our foyer chalkboard with a theme of Fourth of July and strawberries for summer. Working our way through a summer bucket list.

Strawberry Picking 2014

The strawberry season is late this year. That worked out for us since we were gone last week.

It was a hot day to be out picking in the strawberry field.

I had some frames left on my one time use camera from the beach, so I used it up in the strawberry field. Love this shot of Tina.

Aaron concentrated on finding the biggest, plumpest berries.

Yeah, I brought a special basket.

There were some freaky berries this year.

We went to Tina's after for shortcake so I made some lemonade to take.

I made strawberry basil lemonade. I just mix up chopped basil, sliced strawberries, simple syrup and juiced lemons. I've seen some other more involved recipes online that I might try next time.

Tina made a delicious strawberry shortcake!

More CSA strawberry goodness

We got another basket of strawberries in our CSA share this week. What goes great with strawberries? Rhubarb. Aaron LOVES rhubarb and has two big rhubarb plants in the backyard. I "borrowed" a couple stalks to make this homemade strawberry rhubarb soda.

It's pretty easy. You just make a strawberry rhubarb simple syrup and mix it with sparkling water.

Strawberry Rhubarb Simple Syrup

1 cup water

1 cup sugar

2 cups cup strawberries

1 cup chopped rhubarb

Boil it all together and let it simmer for 10 to 15 minutes. Mix it with sparkling water to taste.

The soda only used half the strawberries, so I raided Aaron's rhubarb again and made filling for strawberry rhubarb pocket pies.

Add a nice tall glass of cold milk and he didn't complain about his depleted rhubarb supply too much.

Strawberry picking

Strawberries are in season and it was a beautiful day for friends to gather to pick them.

Tina's new puppy loves strawberries.

Mmmm strawberry shortcake.

Day 23: 30 Days of Creativity - Strawberry basil jam

I have a lot of strawberries from strawberry picking last weekend and they were starting to go bad so I needed to use them fast. First up was a batch of strawberry freezer jam. While I was making it I was staring at the basil plant on my counter and thinking about how much I like strawberry basil lemonade. So I got creative (Day 23 - 30 Days of Creativity) and added some chopped up basil. I'll let you know how the strawberry basil jam tastes on toast!

I figured the perfect thing to go with the strawberries was some rhubarb. Luckily I have a nice big rhubarb plant growing in the garden.

Three rhubarb stalks later and I had a batch of strawberry rhubarb pocket pies. I love strawberry season.

Strawberries

It's strawberry season and we headed out to the fields to pick some for eating and baking.

We had a few friends join us.

And one strawberry squisher.

It was overcast and drizzly but we stuck it out.

Aaron has a knack for finding the monster berries.

We picked 9 quarts... I see lots of strawberry shortcake in our future.

Strawberry Jam

So what do you do with a giant bowl of strawberries?

You make three batches of strawberry jam!

Yeah so we were up making it around midnight - productive!

Yudo printed strawberry dishcloths

I have been dying to try out my Yudu and so I made these strawberry dishtowels as gifties for my strawberry picking party.

First I used my overlock machine to sew the towels.

Then I created the design and printed it onto a transparency which I then used to burn the design onto a screen for printing.

Here I am flooding the screen with ink.

I made a bunch of dishtowels. Ok, so they aren't practical dishtowels, they are more just for looking at.

I am really impressed with the Yudu, it exceeded my expectations. I have all kinds of ideas now!