Friday, June 29, 2012

Strawberries!!!

Oh summer!!  I love you for so many reasons; warm sunshine, sundresses, short shorts, bare arms, swimming, the lake and I could go on but I won't.

I will concentrate on a particular favourite:  Strawberry season!  It's my fav!! 

We have a wonderful strawberry patch that we go to "Sunset U-pick" which is currently in danger of being rezoned for housing.  I signed the petition to keep it zone for whatever it is now because I desperately want the strawberries to stay!!  So if you live in Fredericton, head to Sunset U-pick for some amazing strawberries and sign that petition!!!

I found out on Monday that it had opened on Friday without my knowledge and since Monday was beautiful here and the next 3 days were supposed to rain I was desperately trying to figure out if they were open in the evening.  Yes, they are in fact!

I packed up the boys after a speedy supper, grabbed some containers and went in search of strawberries.

Sunset U-pick did not dissappoint, first they were open at 5:45pm (and actually until around 8pm I think, perhaps we didn't need to speed eat but I wasn't willing to take that chance!!) and they had so many huge bright red strawberries ready for picking. 



The boys did great, they gathered approximately 1/2 a box each (some were still a little pale but we will work on that!!) and perhaps ate the other half of their boxes!!



I spent my time there speed strawberry picking as I have no idea the exact attention span a 2 and 4 yr old have for this activity.  It can change at any moment!  So I gathered as many as I could and filled all the containers we had with us!  That equals HUGE success in my world.  I think they had fun, I was happy to have strawberries and everyone loved eating them!!!



We definitely collected enough since we had enough to drop off one box to my parents, a big bowl for individual bowls of yummy strawberries and some strawberry shortcakes AND 6 batches of strawberry jam!! 



So now I have many many containers of jam for the rest of the year.  I should be able to make it until next summer but I can't be sure so I will probably have to make a couple more just to be sure!!!

I always use the freezer jam pectin that uses 4 cups of fruit and 1 1/2 cups of sugar or splenda!!  It tastes the best and you have more fruit than sugar which is hasto be a good thing. 
A little trick I learn because I prefer my jam to not have chunks is to puree the strawberries after you mash them before you put the sugar in.  The package says don't puree but I do and it works great.   My kids love it and look how bright and fun it looks on toast!!!



I hope everyone enjoys this Canada Day long week and gets a few strawberries to eat!!  I think we are heading back for more on Saturday morning.  You just need to have strawberry shortcake for Canada Day weekend!!!


Have fun and be safe!!!

HAPPY CANADA DAY!!!!


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