Strawberries!

 

What do you do when you discover an awesome farm a few minutes from your house that sells unsprayed strawberries at a great price?  Buy 8 quarts of them of course!  

Here's what I did with 8 quarts of strawberries:

 

FROZE WHOLE BERRIES

 Remove stems and wash berries.

 Place on cookie sheet with wax or parchment paper - sprinkle with a little bit of sugar.  Place cookie sheet in freezer.  When they are frozen, toss in freezer bags for storage.  Great for smoothies, baking, eating...

STRAWBERRY SAUCE

Make a strawberry sauce with 1 quart of berries, 2-3 tablespoons of sugar (to taste) and a squeeze of fresh lemon juice.  Blend in blender and pour into glass jars or plastic storage containers for freezing.  Perfect for pouring over ice cream, oatmeal, waffles, pancakes...

STRAWBERRY MILKSHAKES

Mix what's left in your blender from the strawberry sauce with vanilla ice cream and a little milk for a great strawberry milkshake.

STRAWBERRY JAM

I use the Traditional Strawberry Jam recipe from the Ball Blue Book.  Here's the online recipe if you're interested.  If you want to try canning and want a resource buy this book - it's under $10 - I've seen it at Wal-Mart, hardware stores and K-Mart.  It's full of recipes for canning, freezing and dehydrating fruits and vegetables.

STRAWBERRY SHORTCAKE
In my opinion, it isn't summer without at least one batch of strawberry shortcake.  I used Ree's recipe from The Pioneer Woman Cooks for Buttermilk Biscuits, made real whipped cream, sliced berries and added a teaspoon or two of sugar. 

What's your favorite summer strawberry recipe?

I'm linking this post up to some great parties!