Strawberries.

Next year, can one of you lovelies remind me that TWENTY pounds of strawberries is slightly excessive? 

They had too much fun picking them or rather standing in a field eating berries while I picked them.  We met friends, who thankfully, helped me corral Tate, and still manage to take home two full boxes.  Good friends are an asset in the strawberry picking game, but next year I’m making Dave come along too.

The homegrown strawberry season is so short here, really the best berries are available for a week or sometimes two.  So you have to jump when you get the chance. I mean, you wait all year long to walk out to that delicious smelling field and pluck warm, ripe strawberries right off the vine.   You’re dreaming of shortcakes and pies and jam as you’re pulling the most delectable red berries and putting them into your container.

It’s easy to see how I ended up with so many. 

 

 

  

And then, THEN you get home and have to figure out what to do with all of those berries.

We’ve had strawberry shortcake, strawberries and cream, strawberries over ice cream, strawberries for breakfast, strawberry snacks, strawberries for lunch and strawberry limeaid to wash it all down.  Strawberries are frozen whole in simple syrup.  Strawberries coulis.  Strawberry lemonade.  Strawberry purée. 

And then the freezer jam.  Dear LORD, the jam. 

19- half pint jars of strawberry vanilla jam

12- half pint jars of strawberry jam

15- 4oz jars of balsamic strawberry jam

15- 4oz jars of strawberry vanilla jam

It’s a lot of jam to be sure.  Some is going to our grandmas or friends or our parents.  I’m going to make those fancy vanilla strawberry filled cupcakes for Tate’s birthday again.  And I’m sure midwinter, I’ll be happy to open a jar and have it taste just like summer. 

For now, I’m going to go scrub the red stains out of my hands. 

Again.

 

For my local readers, we pick berries at Johnston’s in Swanton, they have great ‘you pick’ prices {$1.35/pound this year} and the staff are always fantastic telling you where in the field you should look to avoid the areas that have already been picked over.  The girl helping us this year was so sweet, she actually walked out to where we were to tell us that we’d have better luck with bigger berries a few rows over.  We’re going to go back out for blueberries soon too.