It’s berry season everywhere! Blueberries! Strawberries! Raspberries! Oh my!
Enviro-Girl began her own strawberry patch in one corner of her raised garden bed 3 years ago. Now the patch has taken over the space so there’s only room on two sides of that bed for a row of beans and a couple of squash. But the homegrown berries are so good, so sweet, so pure, that Enviro-Girl happily forgoes the space and tilled up a new veg bed. The taste of her homegrown berries don’t even compare to the papery-watered-down flavor of the bigger strawberries she finds in her grocery store — no matter what the season.
Enviro-Girl grows her own berries as a matter of taste, but the local berry farms also have dang good fruit to pick or purchase in season. She’d rather load up on the good-tasting stuff in season and eat it out of her freezer or pantry year round than choke down a tasteless (but so pretty) berry imported over a thousand miles from California. And she’d rather eat an organic berry than a pesticide-laden berry because she values her health. Store bought berries from factory farms are laced with any combination of 371 legal pesticides. Yikes! So flavor AND toxicity factor into Enviro-Girl’s decision to avoid the supermarket berry.
Not everyone has the space or fortitude to grow their own, but most areas have farms where you can pick or purchase your own in season. Load up your empty ice cream buckets and process your pickings to enjoy all winter long. Simply clean them, take off their tops, and drop them whole into quart-sized freezer bags. Add sugar or simple syrup to your liking and stick them in the freezer to pull out when you’re in the mood for a bit o’ heaven. And if you are very skilled and enjoy putzing in your kitchen, try your hand at canning them as jam or preserves.
But if you’re like Enviro-Girl, you’ll gobble up a fair share before getting around to freezing your berries. Here’s her family’s favorite strawberry recipe:
Nina’s Strawberry Crisp
6 Cups clean whole berries (tops off) in the bottom of a 9X11 baking pan. Cut one stick (1/2 cup) butter into squares and place in a layer on top of the berries. Empty a bag of yellow cake mix on top of the butter. Cut another stick of butter and layer on top of the cake mix. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour. Eat warm with ice cream. Yum!
