Picking and Preserving Strawberries

I went strawberry picking with my sister-in-law and my nephews this week and picked over twenty pounds of strawberries.  (And I probably would have picked more if my nephews were a little more interested.)  It always seems like such a good idea at the time.  But then, of course, I have to come home and do something with them.

So far I've managed to make strawberry sauce, from the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving, which is delicious.  I made it to add to plain yogurt, but I'm going to have a hard time not putting it on top of anything it could possibly go with.  (That was fun--I chose an 85 degree day in my non-air conditioned house to can something that requires constant stirring of a boiling pot for fifteen minutes.)  And I made a cold-process strawberry shrub.  (Thankfully, no stove required!)  Shrubs are amazing and so easy to make.  I highly recommend mixing one up.  I normally make non-alcoholic drinks with shrubs by mixing with sparkling water, but I'm going to try some cocktails with this batch.  I've also frozen a bunch of strawberries for later use, but I still haven't quite figured out what I'm going to do with the rest that are in my fridge.  I was originally planning some strawberry rhubarb jam (with our own out-of-control rhubarb,) but I haven't gotten around to that yet.  Maybe today.

there were two of these

cut up and ready to go

strawberry sauce