Barefoot Southern Life: Strawberry Love

After more than six months of being computer-less, I finally got a new one. YAY! I’ve spent most of the last month catching up on loading pictures. Now that's done and I can get back to other stuff. Like blogging!

Strawberry season is here. Its one of my favorites. Being one of the first fruits available, it just shouts spring’s arrival and whispers of the summer to come. We use a lot of strawberries. I do mean a LOT.

So many that we go to a local u-pick strawberry field and pick gallons of those little red fruits. This time we only picked two gallons, but with the intent to go back and pick more in a few weeks. (At least another two gallons worth.) When we first moved here it took a year or two to remember when strawberry season was so we wouldn’t miss it. Just in case you’re wondering- for us, it starts about the first week in May and goes through the month. Further north, you probably aren’t even thinking about local strawberries yet, June is your time.

We make strawberry freezer jam every year. Last year I only made 12 jars and we ran out in October. October people! That’s like six months of horrible strawberry jam deprivation. My oldest completely refused to eat peanut butter and jelly after that. Apparently, we take our strawberries pretty seriously over here. But we will be prepared this year! The boys are getting very into cooking, and even helped me prep the berries for jam this year.

PS- that's a butter knife. He likes to mangle fruit and veggies with it.

For the jam, I just followed the direction in the low sugar pectin box. (The pink one.) It is fabulously easy and since the jam is going in the freezer, no water bath canning is required!

I also made strawberry fruit leather. I didn’t take pictures of that because I pretty much just cut up some strawberries, squeezed some lemon juice, cored an apple and stuck it all in the food processor and then dehydrated it. (Oh I did strain the mixture to get out any large pieces of apple skin or pulp before dehydrating.) The boys love them. The apple adds just the right balance of sweet to the lemon juice without adding actual sugar. They taste just like a strawberry fruit roll up but without the added stuff.

Lastly, with this batch of strawberries I made Strawberry Hand Pies. A hand pie is the southern version of a turnover. I got the recipe from Not Quite Nigella.

The pastry was incredibly easy and I believe will be my go to for all future hand pie making. I didn’t have a large enough biscuit cutter, but the boys’ bowls seemed about the right size. I simply flipped the bowl over and pushed it into the dough to cut out my circles.

The filling was yummy, but I had to make 1 1/2 times the filling to fill 9 pastries, so I will double it next time. I also made the second half-batch without the cinnamon and prefer it that way.