My mom called me late last week to tell me strawberries were on sale for a quarter at our favorite grocery store.
A QUARTER?!?
But it gets better.
Bob, get out of the way. I’m trying to take a picture.
I had Jon stop at the store for me, and he came home with eight pint cartons of strawberries. Grand total? A dollar. That’s right, they were half off of a quarter apiece.
It sort of made me wish I had bought five dollars worth. But then I’d still be slicing them up for the freezer.
We kept snacking while we were cleaning and cutting them up. There’s no denying it’s strawberry season―they are at the very peak of flavor and sweetness and it was hard to stop. Jon said to watch out for moldy ones, because some of the cartons at the store had started to turn (hence the mad rush by the grocer to get rid of them), but I only needed to throw four berries away for being too mushy and ripe.
I used one carton to make dessert for us that night (strawberries and dumplings, mmm…) and flash froze the rest, which means cutting them into pieces and freezing them on trays, then packing them in bags after they’re frozen. This gives the enormous benefit of being able to pull out just what you need when you use them, rather than thawing a gigantic, stuck-together clump.
I now have two gallon bags of perfectly ripe and tasty strawberries in the freezer for us to use all year, instead of buying fresh ones at the grocery store when they spike to $5.99 a carton. HUGE savings, and they taste better, too. Everybody wins!
