The Day of the Strawberries

Yesterday we only cleaned the strawberries we needed to make a strawberry pie.  This afternoon, we decided it was time to tackle the rest of strawberries. First we cleaned them and then we came up with a game plan.

Strawberry Bread was our first adventure. I printed a recipe off of Allrecipes and I'll use it again. It seems like a lot of oil, but the oil made it super moist. It's not the best thing in the world to eat all the time when you look at the amount of oil and sugar, but every now and then it'll be a real treat.

Strawberry Bread
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 teaspoons ground cinnamon
2 cups white sugar
2 cups sliced fresh strawberries
4 eggs
1 1/4 cups vegetable oil
1 cup chopped walnuts

1.Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease 2 9x5 inch loaf pans.

2.Sift together the flour, baking soda, salt, ground cinnamon and sugar in a large mixing bowl. Make a well in the center. Beat together the eggs and oil and pour them into the well. Stir just enough to moisten the ingredients. Fold in the strawberries and nuts. Pour mixture into prepared pans; fill containers no more than half full.

3.Bake in a preheated oven about 60 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool 20 to 30 minutes before removing from pans. Move to a rack to cool completely before slicing.

Our next adventure was Strawberry Jam and it truly was an adventure with a slight learning curve. Neither my Mom nor I have ever canned anything. We had a few stops and starts, but it all worked out. We made 11 jars of jam and I can't wait for it to set up to have toast with home-made jam for breakfast.

Mom and I mashing strawberries to mix in with 7 cups of sugar! Oh my!

Stirring the bubbling hot jam mixture.

Pouring Jam into jars - if you attempt this, get a friend to help so that one can pour and one can clean the jars and put the lids on.

Our finished jars of jam - I am super proud of myself (btw - I used the recipe inside the packet of pectin.)

Our left over strawberries after making the jam

There are only so many sweet things we can eat with strawberries so I went back to allrecipes late this afternoon looking for something new. I found several recipes for Spinach Strawberry Salads. I ended up using grilled chicken, spinach, chopped bacon, sliced strawberries, croutons and a Raspberry Pecan Dressing.

It was finger plate licking good!

I think we've had our fill of strawberries.  I froze a huge bag for smoothies and we have just enough left to top cereal for the next few days.  Next time we go to the strawberry patch, we are taking smaller buckets!