Strawberry Picking: a fun family activity centered on a healthy food

          Have you ever been strawberry picking? We just went Saturday- it was the first time for any of us. We went to Getting's Garden, located outside of Sheldon, Iowa (http://gettingsgarden.com). It was so much fun. It's an amazing opportunity to teach my daughter where her food comes from and also make fun family memories.

          I thought it was so cool how many strawberries were on each stem: big red ones next to tiny green ones, and a few flowers mixed in that haven't even started growing their strawberries. I love being in nature and seeing God's wonderful creation.

          As my husband I were prepping some of our freshly picked strawberries for the freezer yesterday, I got to thinking: how do other people prep their strawberries? Growing up, my mom would just chop the top off to get the green off. I got a huller in grad school because I thought it was the most novel invention. In reality, you have to shove it in there, wiggle it around, and almost scrape it to the side as you lift it out in order to actually get the stem and leaves off. Who wants mushed strawberries and to do that much work just to get the stem off? We picked 2 flats worth of strawberries and I found that the stems came off super easy just pulling with my finger. Sometimes I used my thumbnail to get right at the base of it. My daughter Addison (3 years old) could even do it.

          So I decided to try all 3 methods next to each other. What can I say...I needed some excitement in those oceans of strawberries. ;) One thing I am always conscious of is waste. I try not to waste or throw away anything unless absolutely necessary. Cutting the stem off leaves quite a bit of waste, the huller is a little better, but just pulling it off wastes no edible part of the strawberry at all! Not to mention that you don't need to use any tool but your own fingers! This is something your young child can do with you and you don't need to worry about knife safety or anything. We ended up prepping 47 cups worth of strawberries, so cutting the top off of each would generate a lot of waste! Pulling the stems off just left a heap of green. 

          Now I've got 47 pre-portioned bags of cut strawberries in my deep freezer to add to our Shakeology each morning. (To those who might think it's funny I am worried about waste but still used plastic bags...we reuse them MANY times before throwing them away. There are some conveniences I still use but it's not like I had any other way to store almost 50 cups of strawberries.)

So tell me: 

Have you been strawberry picking?

How do you prep your strawberries?

I'd love to hear from you to see if this idea has occurred to you before!