I LOVE saving money! But I especially LOVE saving money on healthy foods for my family. And what’s better than getting a great price on nutritious foods while having fun helping out local farms? Take your family strawberry picking!
My son gave me this heart-shaped strawberry 🙂
This past weekend we took to kids to a local strawberry field to pick strawberries. It was so much fun! The kids had a wonderful time and I think it’s great to show them where their food actually comes from…I believe it even helps them want to eat it. We picked so many strawberries! When we left we had 2 big party bowls full and 2 pails that the kids were using. Here are the berries combined into two bowls after some were eaten (Yum!)…
This photo looks very deceiving…the bowls don’t look that big in the photo, but they were actually BIG party bowls that I use for bags of chips and pretzels when entertaining. And guess how much we paid for all of them? $12.65! We picked 12 lbs of strawberries! At nearly $4/lb in grocery stores, I’d say we saved a ton and had fun doing it! 🙂
My 2-year-old…see the green berries in that bucket? Ha!
How to Freeze Strawberries
So what do you do with all those strawberries? Freeze them! I froze all berries except those that we will use this week. Here’s what I did…
- Soak strawberries in 1 part vinegar : 10 parts water for 5 minutes. Rinse completely. As I was adding the strawberries to the bowl I weeded out the ones that were mushy for us to eat now.
- Remove the stems and let the strawberries dry for 30 minutes on a paper towel.
- I froze my berries whole since I wasn’t sure what I would be using them for. If you’d like you can also cut them in half before freezing.
- Freeze the strawberries in a single layer on a cookie sheet for 24 hours. Then you can use a Foodsaver if you have one or simply add them to freezer quality storage bags in quantities that are good to pull for recipes or just snacking. I froze mine in 3 cup portions.
- Put them back in the freezer until ready to use 🙂
We picked our strawberries at Pumpkin Hill Produce Farms in Nescopeck, PA. You can contact them at 570-379-2106 or view the Pumpkin Hill Produce Farms facebook page.
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