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

New Canning and Crochet Books

 

My birthday was a few weeks back and I got some wonderful new canning and crochet books: 

Crochet Stitches Visual Encyclopedia by Robyn Chachula
- I can never have enough stitch dictionaries, which are basically lists of instructions on how to do different stitch patterns.

Creating Crochet Fabric by Dora Ohrenstein
- This book is supposed to be amazing if you write your own patterns--or have any interest in doing so.

Food in Jars by Marissa McClellan
- Food in Jars is one of my favorite canning websites so I definitely wanted the book.

The Joy of Pickling by Linda Zedrich
- We love pickles around here, so an entire book about pickling seemed like an obvious choice.

So far I've mostly just looked through them and picked out things I want to make--like Gingery Sweet Pickled Vegetables (Joy of Pickling) and Cantaloupe Jam with Vanilla (Food in Jars.)  I also did a little Tunisian crochet swatching from some stitch patterns in Crochet Stitches Visual Encyclopedia for a possible summer scarf pattern.  (And learned I need more practice at Tunisian crochet.)  I'm sure I'll let you know as soon as I get around to making anything from them.