Strawberry Overload

  

My initial excitement of a few handfuls of strawberries had ben replaced by a slight nausea at the number of strawberries coming out of our field right now. You have to understand we have quite a good size strawberry patch. I think there must be more than 150 plants out there, but I’ve never really counted? At any rate the number of strawberries that I get out of the field is growing every day, I am struggling to keep up with processing them. Its one thing to whip up a batch or two of jam on a day off, but it’s another to process 20-30 pounds of strawberries a day. I am trying to keep in mind however that I felt like this last year when dealing with my tomatoes, but I could have easily used twice or more the number of jars of salsa and tomato sauce. I will strive to make at least twice as much this year. I have been trying to think ahead about what we might want to use strawberries for in the coming year. of course strawberry jam is a given, but since we area largely gluten-free household we don’t spread a lot of things on toast and the like. I made a few strawberry crumbles since they are an easy gluten-free desert. I whipped up a couple of batches of less sweet jam to use in salad dressings. Yummy! Strawberry Balsamic Vinaigrette. I also made a batch of my own jam using home-made apple pectin, just as an experiment. We are also freezing a ton of strawberries, they will be great to use in smoothies and deserts this winter.

 All the Jam I made this past week…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Strawberries ready for the freezer…

Chocolate Dipped Strawberries!

30 pounds of strawberries processed in 24 hours! Bam! 

Since then I have been forced to become more creative… I looked up a bunch of recipes on the internet and once I wadded through all the wheat and dairy filled ones, I have found a few worth trying. I chose to try making strawberry macaroons, strawberry balsamic popsicles, and a strawberry rhubarb simple syrup (used to make strawberry rhubarb gin and tonic) All have been a success so far, altho one of my batches of jam did not jell as well as I would have liked it wont matter as I am mostly using it for salad dressing anyways…

 

 

Strawberry Balsamic Popsicles, and Yes, I made them in an ice-cube tray!

I still have one or two recipes up my sleeves to try. A roasted strawberry and toasted coconut popsicle… Hello!!!  Strawberries and whipped coconut cream, (If I can ever get coconut cream to whip correctly) and once the rain stops and we get some heat again I will be trying a recipe my dad sent me for strawberry sangria. Somehow sangria just seems wrong when its raining.

If you have anymore creative suggestions for gluten-free and dairy free recipes feel free to sent them my way. I’ll try anything! Also I think my Garlic scapes are almost ready to harvest… Any suggestions for what to do with then would also be appreciated.

Caio,

S.

 

 

 

Casey with our batch of Strawberry Rhubarb Jam, sweetened with local honey.