Freezing Summer

Strawberries don't last very long but neither do strawberry sales. If, for example, you were to get carried away and buy more strawberries than you could ever possibly eat* before half of them became a moldy disgusting mess in the hot summer heat, you might want to figure out a way to save some for later enjoyment. Of course you could make jam, but that is hot and sticky work and summer is already hot and sticky enough. The other option is to freeze, which is probably both the easiest and coolest solution.

To ensure that you preserve your strawberries to their fullest potential, it's a good idea to gently wash your berries, dry them very gently, and the lay them out on a baking sheet or a pie dish and let them freeze individually before packing them into a heavy ziplock bag to await their future use. Obviously if fresh strawberries are what you want then freezing strawberries is not the answer, but if you aren't going to be able to eat them when they are at their peak then freezing them so that you can use them in a recipe later is a good way to go. Nothing makes me sadder than throwing out once beautiful fruit because it has gone past its prime. If you freeze your precious ripe fruit, you do want to take the time to do it correctly. You don't want to save your fresh fruit from the trash only to have to throw away a freezer-burned icy mass of unusable frozen fruit.

*My personal experience points to strawberry consumption topping out at 1 pound per person per day. Any more leads to extreme strawberry exhaustion and may result in nausea and never wanting to eat another strawberry.