Ideas for what to do with strawberries

[JCWiatt]

We'll be going strawberry picking soon. Love a sunny morning in the fields. However, I always struggle with what to do with our haul and some got wasted last year. I'm looking for quick and easy things to make with strawberries, as well as an easy pie filling and ways to preserve for winter. I'm not a jam maker! Any ideas?

Eton mess.

Bloody love Eton mess.

Strawberry cheesecake?

Blend into a smoothie (with eg banana and yogurt), and then freeze into ice lolly moulds

Also blitz with vanilla ice cream for a strawberry milkshake?

Strawberry vodka

Half weight sugar to strawberries, bung in a litre kilner jar, top up with vodka. Leave in cupboard for a few weeks/months shaking every so often. Pour through sieve and then bottle.

If you're a proper lush like me, the soaked strawbs are great on ice cream

This ice cream recipe is really easy https://www.carnation.co.uk/recipes/strawberry-ice-cream

Blend with some lime juice (taste test) and freeze in giant-ice-cube trays before decanting into ziplocs = ready for smoothies when you want something fresh in winter. I add spinach, cucumber, etc. at time of smoothie making.

Granita is easy to make, but you have to use a large shallow container for best results, and have the patience to scrape the mixture regularly to get that nice and even consistency. Eat with shreds of basil or mint, or use for 'frozen cocktails'

Strawberry Cake
smittenkitchen.com/2011/05/strawberry-summer-cake/

And another way to keep for winter is to make fruit leather! You'll need to have the oven on for hours, however.

Strawberry daiquiri
Eton mess
Make yourself sick eating them;)

Crumble

Made a delicious salad for a party years ago, just mixed leaves, pieces of rare roast beef, sliced strawberries and dressed with black pepper and balsamic.

Wash them and put them on the side in the kitchen, they’ll soon go as everyone pinches one every time they walk past 😂

Make up a fruit crumble base (rhubarb and strawberry is good) and freeze in portions appropriate for yoir family, good for making very quick crumbles over the year.

Strawberry lemonade/limeade is lovely on a hot day.

Eton mess
Cheese cake
Jam
Eat them straight
Strawberry vodka

strawberry cordial

Eastern European idea (my favourite) -add a box of strawberries to a pasta bowl, mash with a fork until they run juices but still have little hard bits left , add a bit of single or double cream and mix all together (you want it to be dark pink so not too much cream), sprinkle sugar on top and eat straight from the bowl. Yum

You can do this with white rum too and then you will have ready to drink strawberry daiquiri

When we have strawberry excess after over enthusiastic PYO I tend to chop them up, add to pan with some vanilla and bit of sugar, stew down. Can either eat like that, but my fussy children like it blended up into a smooth and rather yummy strawberry sauce’. You could sieve it for a more sophisticated coulis.
delicious with ice cream, meringue, waffles or pancakes, Greek yog etc

I'm not saying this will preserve them for months, but if you wash and dry them, then store them in a jar in the fridge, they keep for ages. I was so sick of buying strawberries, then them going all mushy within a day or two, but I saw a post which said to keep them in a jar to keep them fresh and it really does work.

https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/howto/guide/how-to-freeze-strawberries

I do this and make it into a coulis but without the vanilla, and freeze it in portions to have anytime over ice cream or tarts etc.

A strawberry and elderflower layer cake would be nice if there's a birthday or special occasion coming up.

We often make little mini trifles for pudding - nice because you can use some for compote and keep some fresh so you get a bit of both.

Wimbledon is upon us; get in the spirit by having strawberries with cream and sugar every day for afternoon tea.

I always freeze some (sounds silly with fresh strawberries but hear me out...)

--I like to have a few bags in the freezer so I can make properly nice strawberry compote a few times in the winter and spring. I can definitely taste the difference in the end product when I use strawberries that are beautiful to begin with.

This strawberry milk is delicious and a great way to use up any that are overripe.

smittenkitchen.com/2016/06/strawberry-milk/

When you have made everything you want from the fresh ones then puree the rest and freeze in small containers, then you can at a later stage over winter to make ice cream/cheesecake/smoothies/mix through yogurt/mix with cream for cake fillings/pour over pavlova/use as coulis etc. I find it the best use of spare strawberries as they don't freeze well whole, well it's more they don't thaw well! I don't like them cooked as I think it totally changes the flavour but once pureed they can be thawed and just added to loads of things and they taste just like fresh, I particularly like the puree over yogurt and that requires no extra effort!

Cherry and strawberry pie 😋