Freezing Strawberries

One of my favorite childhood summer memories is

when I'd hear the strawberry man coming down the street.

We're talking early to mid 60s here.
He'd have his truck and yell out

"Straaaaaawwwwberries, 3 quarts for a dollar!"

The women in the neighborhood would come out to buy 

his strawberries. That night we'd have strawberry shortcake

for dessert.

Can you imagine getting anything for that price these days?

The supermarket that I shop at, Tops, often has sales that are

buy 2 get 3 free and now and then they have

berries on that sale. 

When they were on sale this time I picked up 5 - 16 oz. packages.

Since there are only 2 of us, that's a lot of strawberries.

I gave a package to our daughter, and decided to do some freezing.

I cut the tops off and put them into a bowl of water to rinse.

I fill a bowl with cool water and don't over fill the bowl

with berries.

When you have enough to cover the top of the water

while floating, you've got enough.

I then swish them around a bit, the pick the out of the water

a couple at a time.
If you don't over crowd them, it gives space for the 

dirt particles and other "debris" to fall to the bottom of

the bowl.  You'll be surprised what comes off your berries.

I then place them onto paper toweling to dry.

Be sure they are not touching and that they can dry completely,

you don't want any water left on them at all,

as this will crystallize on the berries and we sure 

don't want that.  No freezer burn for me!

Drying completely can take an hour or two.

Once they are dry, place them onto a cookie sheet with a

dry piece of parchment paper lining the pan and place 

them in the freezer to freeze.

Freezing doesn't take long at all,

maybe an hour or so.

Once they are frozen you can put them into freezer

bags, remove as much air as possible.

Freezing them before putting them into the bags

will keep them from freezing together in a big clump.

This way you can take out only what you need.

I didn't freeze them all, I did eat some of them

and boy were they good.

In fact they were so good that when we had 

company come for dinner,

I picked up 5 more containers, made strawberry shortcake

with some and froze some more.

We're going to have some nice strawberries during the 

off season.

"Straaaaaawwwwwberries, 6 quarts in my freezer!"

Thanks for stopping by today,

I hope you've learned something and maybe

will try freezing some produce for your off season.

Come again soon,

you never know what you'll see on 

Kristie Kreates!