5 Things to do with Fresh Picked Strawberries

Living in Tampa and so close to Plant City, my family loves to go strawberry picking each year around this time. Our favorite place, and one that we have gone to many years, is Spivey Farms.  They opened their fields this year for you pick on March 3rd and will be open for you pick for a few weeks. At 50 cents for every delicious quart, you really can’t beat the price, and it makes for a fun family morning together.  Every year we pick between 20 and 25 quarts, but once you have all of those strawberries what do you do with them??  Here are 5 easy and delicious ideas for all of your you-pick strawberries.

Eat Them
This is the most obvious and clearly the easiest.  My daughters like to eat their strawberries as they pick, and we always leave with a red face and full belly.  Once we get them home, I like to give them a quick rinse, pull the stems, and leaves off and dry them well.  They are then ready to just be eaten on their own, put on cereal, baked into muffins, etc.

Freeze Them
We pick so many strawberries each year because we love to freeze a bunch and then we have beautiful strawberries all year round.  We love to use them frozen in smoothies, ice cream, or defrost some for use in deserts of muffins.  Note that thawed strawberries will not be as firm as fresh strawberries so make sure your recipe is frozen strawberry compatible.

Make Strawberry Shortcake
I LOVE strawberry shortcake and nothing is better than topping your shortcake with fresh-picked strawberries.  I use the Betty Crocker shortcake mix from a cookbook I have (you can find the recipe here) and real whipped cream. I always make a few extra shortcakes so that we can eat them later by themselves or as strawberry shortcake.

Make a Pie or Freeze Pie Filling
This is the first year I have done this, but as I have more kids I have become more interested in making prepared items that are easily frozen and defrosted.  This year I made enough filling for two strawberry rhubarb pies.  I just made the filling per the instructions on my recipe (minus the pie shell) and froze it in a large freezer bag, writing the directions for the pie on the outside.  I love desserts with strawberries, but there are so many you can eat when the berries are fresh so this is a great option so you can enjoy your strawberry pie later on.

Make Strawberry Jam
I love making jam and this probably 50% of the reason we pick our own strawberries!  We go strawberry picking in March, blueberry picking in May, and blackberry picking in June and eat time we make sure to pick enough so that I can make at least 2 batches of jam (about 8 jars each).  Making jam always sounds so difficult, but it is actually really easy!  I just follow the direction for making the fruit I am using on the pectin container (it’s normally boiling, adding sugar, boiling some more and then canning).

You still have another week to get out there, enjoy the beautiful Florida weather and pick some strawberries!  What is your favorite thing to do with fresh berries?