It's strawberry season! Strawberries are one of my most favourite fruits there is. My kids love them too! We meant to go strawberry picking (my garden strawberries only produced two this year- here's hoping for next year.) but I hurt my back. We did the next best thing went to our local You Pick Farm and bought a flat of strawberries. Then the wheels started turning. What can I do with all of these strawberries so we can enjoy them for longer than just July. You can always to do jam, but I suck at making jam. I can never get it to set and then no one seems to want to eat it. Here are are my updated ideas to fit a modern diet with kids.
Freeze them
Use frozen strawberries for smoothies (cut off tops but don't throw them away! I'll tell you what to do with the tops later).
Make a bowl of fruit salad to keep in your fridge for kids snacks through the summer. My hubby showed me this. His mom used to do that. When him and his brother were hungry they had a ready made healthy snack. The juices of the frozen strawberries will add to the salad so you likely don't need to add sugar.
DIY freezy. Stab the frozen strawberries with a stick and voila! you have a cold frozen snack when you need a cool down.
Make a fruit soup. Finnish people boil fruit and put it on their ice cream or even better rice pudding. It's call Kiisseli. It's prounounced key-sel-ee. Any berry works for this. My great grandma made a prune one! We dreaded it.
Gelato. Make a dairy-free gelato with your frozen strawberries.
Popsicles. Smash your strawberries and put them into forms to make popsicle. They are much healthier when you include all of the pulp from the fruit.
Dehydrate them
quick snack. My kids love to snack on dehydrated strawberries. They are so easy. I put them in my dehydrator on 125F for 15 hours. They are perfect that way. Afterwards, I put them in a bag or a jar (not air tight) and they grab them from the pantry.
Make them into a powder. I love making powders. They are versitile. They can flavour smoothies, ice cream, whipping cream, cakes, icing, marshmallows, or even act as an icing sugar on top of a cake.
Use them for baking. You can use dehydrated strawberries in baking your muffins or cakes.
Fruit Leather. Cook up your strawberries and spread them thin on a pan and make some fruit leather.
Salads. Use dehydrated strawberries as a nice addition to your salads.
SAVE THE TOPS
Strawberry tops are edible! Did you know that? They are actually packed with great antioxidants. More than the actual strawberry. Don't chuck your tops. Here are a few things you can do with your tops.
Make Strawberry Top Tea. This is an amazing tea! Dehydrate the tops and put them in your hot tea water. Let steep for a few minutes and you have a tea that tastes like strawberry cheesecake.
Make a powder for smoothies. After you dehydrate the tops, grind them up into a powder to add to your smoothies or ice cream. You'd never know they were greens! Make sure you keep a bit of the fruit on the top to make it red.
Syrup. Boil the tops and make a strawberry syrup. Use this syrup to sweeten things like salad dressings.