Strawberry Pickin’

Strawberries mean summer. Really, is there anything better than biting into a fresh, juicy, sweet strawberry? I noted a couple of weeks ago when I made a variation on Dorie’s La Palette’s Strawberry Tart that the strawberries I used were from California, which I wasn’t totally thrilled with but dealt with nonetheless. Well, I’m proud to say that Kyle and I made our way into the strawberry field at a local farm here in CT…and on the first day of summer no less! We had a blast. It was the first time either of us had been strawberry pickin’ since we were little kids and as it turns out, this farm was the same farm his mom used to take him to as a kid, which we didn’t know until later in the weekend. I ended up finding this farm on pickyourown.org, a very cool website I came across last week that is a comprehensive listing of farms in just about every state (I can’t confirm EVERY state because I didn’t look at the whole list). If you’re looking for a local farm, go there. Now. 😉

Before hopping on the “Berry Ferry” that would eventually take us out to the field, we were each given a large carton for our pickins. Evidently, neither of us took note as to how much each carton held because we filled both of them and ended up with 19.5 lbs of strawberries!! Yikes!! No worries about the berries going to waste though, we’ve eaten a ton, made a few things with them, including the strawberry pancakes you see in this post, froze 2 gallon-size freezer bags full, and will use the rest to make strawberry jam, which I’ll post about later in the week.

We had a great time…and much needed time to regroup after a few crazy weeks. And, we decided we’re going blueberry pickin’ at the same farm next month when the blueberries are at their peak. Can’t wait!!!