Kitchen Garden Forum

In the past few days I've picked huge quantities of strawberries from the border in my front garden and despite giving some away, still have a surplus with lots more still ripening. I've already got a cupboard full of jam so does anybody have some interesting ways of preserving/storing them in different forms.

Primrose
The same thing happened to me last year. I tried all sorts of ways of using the strawberries so that they could be enjoyed over a long period, such as ice cream etc. The most successful with my family were pure strawberry-juice ice lollies. I just lightly cooked the fruit to release the juice, sweetened it to taste (remembering that freezing seems to reduce the sweetness), then strained it and poured into lolly moulds. Some batches I strained completely, others I mashed up the remaining pulp and stirred it in with the juice, depending what you prefer - personally I hate to waste anything!

My wife cuts them into quarters put them into flat containers ( from the chinese takeaway) covers them with sugar and freezes them!
Ice cream containers are too large, as she only wants enough each time to use for whatever.
They store beautifully,and we always have trifle around Christmas time, as well as later.
They are not so good just for eating, a bit watery!

cheers

Hi Primrose,
If you have the patience, eton mess freezes really well as a made up dessert.
It's basically whipped cream (you can add a little vanilla sugar if you like), broken meringue, strawberry sauce and strawberries. Mix it all up & pack into empty ice cream boxes (or similar containers) and then scoop out as & when needed.
I've only ever managed to freeze it a couple of times, as OH scoffs this stuff as if his life depends on if he's around.
Vivien