What To Do With 13 Pounds of Strawberries

The thing about a trip to the u-pick strawberry patch is it's hard to know when to stop.  I must have said "I'm done!" no less than 5 times only to spot another perfect little bunch of berries and promptly add them to my box.

The result:  13 pounds of berries.

The problem:  I'm the only person in my household who will eat them.  (I know...totally weird, right?)

Luckily, as it turns out, the boys like strawberry flavored things, they just don't like strawberries.  So at least I had that going for me.

Of course, I ate a fair share of the berries all by themselves, but I also did some canning and some freezing with my 13 pound haul.  Here's the breakdown:

• Strawberry Sauce.  I love this stuff.  It's so easy to make, freezes well and dresses up almost anything you serve.  I've used it to turn lemonade into strawberry lemonade and drizzled it on top of cheesecake, ice cream and strawberry shortcake.  It would be great in a milkshake and I'm sure countless other things that I haven't thought to try yet.
• Meyer Lemon Strawberry Muffins.  These are delish.  I made 2 batches and froze them in packs of 4 - a perfect size for a quick breakfast or snack for our little family.  Both boys love them (despite their aversion to strawberries...go figure).
• Strawberry Jam.  No recipe to share for this one - I just followed the directions on the instant pectin packet that I picked up at the grocery store (thanks for the tip, Deb!)  Couldn't be easier - 3 ingredients and no cooking necessary. 
• Freeze them for later.  When you're freezing whole berries (or any fruit for that matter) be sure to flash freeze them by spreading them out in a single layer on a cookie sheet and placing in the freezer overnight. This will keep them separate so when you pour them into a baggie they won't turn into one big rock hard ball of berries.  There are lots of uses for frozen berries (I still want to try homemade fruit roll-ups and didn't get a chance to make a batch of strawberry sorbet), but my main purpose is...
• Smoothies.  I tend to follow the recipe from this link - 3 C fruit, 1 C liquid, 1 C yogurt - but there are countless combinations when it comes to smoothies.  I try to remember to chop up and freeze any fruit that is on the verge of going bad for future use in smoothies.  Currently, in addition to an enormous amount of strawberries, I have kiwi, blueberries and bananas in our freezer.  I even filled a couple of ice cube trays (they still make those!) with some plain yogurt and have baggies of yogurt cubes in the freezer ready to go.  When it's smoothie making time all I have to do is grab a couple of cubes of yogurt, the fruit of my choice, splash in some juice or milk and blend away.  Since everything is already frozen there's no need to add ice.  Once in a while I sneak in some spinach - you don't even notice it's there and the nutritional benefits are fantastic.  These ball freezer jars are the perfect size for a single serving and even snap together for easy stacking in the freezer.

And that is what you (or should I say, I) do with 13 pounds of strawberries!