Save the strawberries, Save the strawberries!!! Follow along my journey to save the berries by making a Strawberry Fruit Base.
Here’s the scenario, you’re at the store and as you walk through the produce section you notice they’re having a sale on strawberries. You just can’t pass up the deal so you grab a couple of boxes more than you really should.
Fast forward three days…
You’ve had strawberries with your breakfast the last three days, and you’ve just opened up the second container out of the four you purchased and realized that they are going bad. Not such a great deal if you can’t somehow salvage the berries.
Sound familiar? It happens more often around here than I’d care to admit. We learned along time ago to make the food dollars count we needed to make sure that we found a way to stretch them till it hurts. And buying fruits on sale when they are quickly going to go past their prime is one way, luckily we’ve found a sweet way to save our berries that doesn’t hurt.
Convert your berries to a fruit base to make them last longer, it works great as a topping for ice cream, a spread on your toast or add it to a milkshake or smoothie. Best of all it saves you money since you aren’t throwing money away with spoiled fruit.
This is a quick and easy way to convert berries to a fruit base, however I would caution not to get too aggressive when mashing the berries. I had to extend the cooking time to get the latest batch reduced down, too much berry juice to start with, Liz told me… she knows her berries.
You can either refrigerate or freeze once you have finished making your strawberry fruit base.
Tip: To extend the life of your berries you should also sort them when you first get them home to immediately remove any berries that have soft or brown spots, these will hasten the decay of the other berries.
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Strawberry Fruit Base
- Total Time: 25 minutes
- Yield: 1 1x
Description
Don’t let overripe strawberries go to waste, whip up a batch of fruit base. Recipe from PocketChangeGourmet.com
Ingredients
- 1 cup strawberries {or other fruit}
- 4–6 tablespoons sugar {depending on the sweetness of the berries}
- 3 tablespoons jam
- 2 teaspoon lemon juice
Instructions
- Clean and cut berries, place in small saucepan and sprinkle with sugar
- Let the berries rest while you add sprinkles to the glasses {optional}
- After about 15-20 minutes, stir the berries and add jam
- Coarsely mash berries and bring to a soft boil
- Cook until thick, about 20 minutes
- Remove from heat and add lemon juice
- Place in fridge until chilled about 2 – 24 hours
- Prep Time: 5
- Cook Time: 20
What is the best way to preserve strawberries that you have found? Do you buy other fruits in bulk and how do you save them long term?
