What To Do With Strawberries...

So you have gone out and picked more strawberries than you can eat, what do you do with them? If you are lucky enough to have had the weather to pick strawberries, I am jealous! It has been so wet in North Carolina that strawberry season might be over even before it gets started.

If you have made jam, pies, short cake, eaten enough to turn your tongue red and still have strawberries left over, don’t let them go to waste.

You can remove the tops, lay the berries out on a parchment paper lined cookie sheet and then freeze them. I prefer to leave my berries whole. After they are frozen, place them in a freezer bag and store them up to a year in your freezer. Freezing them this way they will not stick together and won’t get as mushy when you defrost them. I use mine in smoothies, once or twice I have even made a strawberry pie in the dead of winter.  

Okay you don’t have room in your freezer, why not dehydrate your strawberries? This is super simple, even if you don’t have a dehydrator. Slice your strawberries into quarter inch thick slices and arrange on a cookie sheet. I place my berries on wire racks (like those used for cooling baked goods) on my cookie sheet (for easy clean up line the pan with parchment paper before setting the racks on the pan.)

Use the lowest temperature setting on your oven, mine is 170°F. Leave the oven door cracked to ensure the air circulates inside the oven. Bake for six to eight hours. Personally, I like to turn the fruit over after three hours, just to make sure they are drying equally.  

If you happen to overcook, the berries and they become hard chips. Don’t throw them away! Put them in a spice grinder, food processor or even blender and coarsely grind them up.  You can sprinkle them over ice cream, frosted cup cakes, smoothies or even use to flavor your iced tea or lemonade. Yum!

You can use this method of drying fruit for bananas and apples too!

Not real big on dried fruit, try canning your strawberries. Yes, you can process your strawberries just like peaches or fruit cocktail in syrup. You can use canned strawberries over pancakes, ice cream, in yogurt or even use to make strawberry-lemonade.

Here is the method I used last year from the blog “Putting up with the Turnbulls.” The berries did blanch a bit in the jar while processing but should not change the taste.

 I made a huge mistake when I made my batch last year. There was one jar that lid was not tightened down, and leaked juice into the water bath. I did not want to take the risk of guessing which jar leaked so I tossed the entire batch, rather than risk botchalism. This was also the last batch of strawberries I had, so I was not able to make more. Bummer!

RECIPE FOR WHOLE STRAWBERRIES IN SYRUP:

16 cups strawberries ~ tops removed (select berries that are similar in size and on the smaller side)

2 1/2 cups sugar

1. Wash strawberries well and remove stems.
2. Place strawberries and sugar in a large stainless steel saucepan and stir gently until all of the berries are well coated.  Cover and set aside in a cool place for approximately 5 hours.
3. Prepare for water bath canning.
4. Heat berry and sugar mixture over medium low heat stirring gently to be sure not to break apart the berries.  The sugar will dissolve, turning into the syrupy liquid that will cover the finished product and the berries should be heated through.  Note: you want to make sure that the berries are warm right through this will help to prevent fruit float.
5. Remove from heat and using a slotted spoon fill hot sterilized jars with strawberries.  Ladle hot liquid into each jar, leaving 1/2″ headspace.  Remove air bubbles and adjust headspace if necessary by adding more hot liquid.  Note: if you do not have enough of the sugary liquid you can add boiling water. 
6. Wipe rims with a damp paper towel.  Center lid on jar and screw band down to finger tip tight.
7. Process 1 pint jars for 10 minutes and 1 quart jars for 15 minutes in a boiling hot water bath. 
8. Remove lid and wait 5 minutes before removing the jars.  Note:  leaving the jars in the hot water bath rather than removing them quickly will help to prevent siphoning.  Siphoning commonly occurs when there is a rapid change in temperature. 
9. Let cool, check seals, label, and store.