Strawberry Season

While we were in Durbach, Germany a few weekends ago, we couldn't help but notice all the signs and roadside stands selling strawberries. For this area it was definitely strawberry season!! I haven't had plump, juicy, fresh strawberries like this is a LOOOOONG time. Between Martin and ourselves, we stopped at one of the stands everyday.  We made our final stop as we were leaving. We choose two of the larger containers to bring home to Holland with us.

Here's a bit of a language lesson. German and Dutch can be very similar especially near the border of each country. In German, strawberries are "erdbeeren", but in Dutch they're "aardbeien". They sound a little different when pronounced, but written I'd say they are pretty similar.


Although the boxes were very large, this picture doesn't do it any justice.  Doug thought for sure we would finish all the strawberries from both boxes by just snacking on them. While we did make a HUGE dent with our snacking, these strawberries were so fresh that they were not going to last for more than a few days. With the help of google I found two interesting strawberry recipes to try and I would recommend both.

First I made Strawberry Cinnamon Oatmeal Muffins. They make a great, healthy snack or breakfast choice. And they are kid approved! You can find the Strawberry Cinnamon Oatmeal Muffins recipe here.

Next I tried a Strawberry Spinach Salad with our chicken one night. It was a great side for a summer meal.  I didn't read through all the comment and should have before making it. Multiple suggestions were to cut the amount of sugar in half. After making the salad, I totally agree. While the dressing tasted good, it was way to sweet with the fresh strawberries. For the Strawberry Spinach Salad recipe click here.

We all know the one thing you MUST make with fresh strawberries and that is STRAWBERRY SHORTCAKE!! I'm sure most everyone has there own recipe for this, but if you're interested in the one I used you can find it here. It wasn't the best recipe for biscuits from scratch that I have every had, so I think next time I'll try another one.

But even after all the snacking and baking we had enough strawberries left to freeze. Since I have never frozen strawberries I wasn't sure if there were any tricks involved. Once again I took to the internet where I found a great blog about freezing fresh fruits and even how to make jams (which maybe someday I'll give that a go!) Anyway, there really is no special secret to freezing them. You just have to make sure they are washed, hulled and dried. The suggestion was to use a vacuum sealer but she also gave a great tip for anyone who doesn't own one. I found this tip very useful and can't believe I never thought of it before. A tip for a low budget vacuum sealer is to remove the excess air from a ziploc bag by putting a straw inside the bag and zipping it closed as far as possible. Then suck the air out of the bag, pinch the straw shut where it enters the bag, pull it from the bag and quickly zip the bag the rest of the way. 

We now have lots of fresh strawberries frozen for more recipes!