Strawberries & Peas

The strawberries and peas are ripe and its time to go picking! The whole family headed out to Rowe’s Produce Farm in Yspilanti on Sunday. With R and J strapped to our backs and C by our side we set out to pick 3 flats of strawberries and 1 peck of sugar snap peas. It took us about an hour and a half with lots of time spent picking the “green” strawberries and of course eating as many ripe ones as humanly possible. Yum! I was a little concerned about the mud situation since it had rained 2 inched the night before. But lucky for us the weather was perfect. Cool, cloudy, and low mud!

Once the little ones were down for their naps I ran out to pick up some Bisquick for strawberry shortcake. Unfortunately there wasn’t enough time left in the day so the boys will have to wait until tomorrow. The park was calling!!

After the kids were in bed for the night, it was time to get moving on the strawberries. I separated out all of the perfect berries, hulled them, and placed them on cookie sheets to be put into the freezer. Once they were frozen solid I placed them into pint sized freezer bags and then back into the freezer. The rest of the not so pretty but still delicious strawberries were made into strawberry shortcake and jam (to come later this week).

The peas followed a similar fate. A 1 gallon bag of washed peas was saved for snacking and the rest were prepared for freezing. The stems were removed, placed into freezer bags, and down to the freezer. As I am writing this I am wondering if they should have been blanched before freezing? probably..... oh well, I am sure they will still be good.

My most favorite part of this whole process will be in the middle of next winter when we pull out a bag of delicious strawberries or peas and I get to remember this great day!

Grand Total:

12 pint sized bags of frozen strawberries
7 pint sized bags of frozen peas
1 awesome day spent with the family
strawberry shortcake
jam