Oscoey

When my husband and I first started really looking into our food many years ago one of the first things we looked at was high fructose corn syrup.  We discovered it was really difficult to buy jam without out it so we decided to try making our own.  Since we lived in a townhouse with no yard we became huge fans of U-pick farms. For a few years we would make the trek out to the farm, pick a bunch of berries and then bring them home to freeze, make jam and sometimes dry them.  We stopped making jam about the time we had our second child because life got busy and we started to stray from trying to be more self-sufficient.  When we had our third child we strayed even farther and a few months ago I realized although we were cooking a lot of our own food still, processed foods had crept back into our diet. Our garden is still young and we do not have a lot of mature berry plants so this year I was determined to make all of the major U-pick seasons (strawberry, raspberry, blackberry and apples).

Last weekend we went strawberry picking with the younger kids and we had a lot of fun! The key is to go after a few sunny days so the berries are sweeter and early enough in the day that the fields are not so hot that you are miserable in the sun.  Our three year old is a total foodie and has inherited my love of fruit so she spent most of her time eating everything she picked.  Our son will not eat fruit unless it is cooked in something or comes in pouch form so he wandered around telling me about the plants and watching all of the people. It was great because both kids had fun in their own way and my husband and I were able to pick a couple of flats in a relatively short amount of time.

The farm we went to had a little play area with shaved ice so after we picked our berries we ate a snack and some shaved ice. The kids ran around and played some more which guaranteed a nap for the youngest in the car on the way home. It was a great way to spend the morning as a family.  We are also firm believers in involving our kids in the whole food/cooking process so it was great to have them help with picking berries.  It was still relatively early in the season so the strawberry plants were very full of berries which made picking faster and easier than in the past when we have gone towards the end of the season.

The first thing I did when we got home was slice up our berries and fill the dehydrator.  Dehydrated berries need to be very fresh and blemish free so the sooner you get them in the dehydrator the better.  It also takes 8-12 hours (or more) so make sure you time it so you aren’t having to wake up in the middle of the night to pull them out.  For a long time we used a small dehydrator with a top fan that had been passed down from many people and worked okay but last fall my Dad bought me an Excalibur dehydrator for my birthday and this was my first time using it.  Man, there was a huge difference.  My fruit was much more evenly dehydrated and having a temperature setting with a timer seemed extra luxurious.  I even forgot to rotate the trays until well into the process and they still came out very evenly dry. Our old one you had to rotate every two hours and it still ended up taking way longer to dry out the food no where near as even. I highly recommend saving up for the Excalibur it was a completely different experience for me this time around.  I really wish I had bought the fruit leather trays so I could have made fruit leather as well but maybe next time. There is also a dehydrator cookbook that I would like to try as well.

Our strawberries came out of the dehydrator while our kids were eating breakfast.  It is important to check that they are dry before you put them into long term storage so that they do not develop mold over time.  My kids were hungry so I just put the not so dry ones into a small glass dish for them to eat and honestly they did not last until lunchtime since everyone was snacking on them.  My son actually ate a few pieces of dried strawberries which was a huge win!  I made 5 trays of berries and it filled about 1/3 of a gallon Ziploc bag. We are not huge eaters of dried fruit so it will be enough for us.

While the fruit was drying I cut the tops off of more strawberries and placed them on a cookie sheet in the freezer.  We freeze them this way so that we can take a few out as needed for smoothies.  I leave them in there for a few hours then transfer them to a gallon Ziploc bag. We probably need three gallons of frozen strawberries to last us a year but we simply did not pick enough berries for that this year.  I froze two trays of berries and it made 1 1/3 gallons of frozen berries.  Next year I think we will pick 3, maybe 4 flats of berries so that we have enough to freeze three gallons and make some fruit leather.  It is always a learning process and I am really glad we are figuring out the kinks so that in the future we can know how much we will need.

My kids love smoothies so we have already eaten quite a few of our frozen berries and they were delicious!  With all of the recalls on frozen food I am really glad we have some berries stashed away for future use! About a year ago when Costco had most of their frozen veggies recalled I had to completely change how we bought our vegetables since we eat a lot of frozen peas, green beans and corn.  Every year I want to add to what we grow ourselves so we will no longer be reliant on store bought fruits and vegetables.  Stay tuned for our next post in the series about the delicious jam we made from our strawberries!

What foods are you replacing with your garden this year?