Keep Strawberries Alive!

It's strawberry season, which I get pretty excited about. Strawberries are high in vitamin C and fiber, as well as containing lots of other vitamins and minerals. They are also delicious! My problem with strawberries has always been that, for most of the year, they are just so expensive, and when they're cheap you can only eat so many before they go bad.

I want cheap strawberries to eat throughout the year, so I've started freezing them. Sure, you can buy frozen strawberries, but those cost even more than out-of-season fresh ones most of the time. It is SO easy to just do it yourself. When the price is right, buy as many as you want to deal with and can fit in your freezer. Just rinse and dry with a kitchen towel, cut the stems off, and place on cookie sheets. Place the cookie sheets flat in the freezer for several hours. My freezer isn't huge, so I just have to do a couple sheets at a time. When the berries are relatively hard, just fill gallon freezer bags and store back in the freezer. If you skip the cookie sheet and just freeze in the bags you might find that you have a gallon-sized strawberry mass. They become a lot harder to deal with that way.

The disclaimer here is that nothing truly replaces fresh strawberries. That's still the best way to eat them and the only good way to eat them whole or freshly cut up in salads or cereal. Frozen strawberries are still very useful and nutritious, though, and are great for strawberry shortcake, pies, milkshakes, homemade ice cream, and puree to put in cakes and muffins or to pour over pancakes or waffles. With instant access to strawberries year-round, it's always spring in my house!