What to do with too many raspberries and strawberries?
We planted both raspberries and strawberries over the last few years and are getting so many we can't eat them all. We give them away, but is there something better we can do with them?
Edit: thanks for all the great responses. I think we're going to freeze them.
You can just freeze them for smoothies. Everyone is saying jam and that’s a good idea but it’s a whole process and has to be sanitary. It’s not super hard, obviously, and it’s worth learning how to do but the first time can be a bit daunting and you really have to follow every step. A smoothie is easy.
Another pretty easy thing is to make ice cream and freeze it. A restaurant I cooked at had fig trees that would go nuts once a year and we’d have buckets of figs. We basically made vanilla ice cream and added figs. That was delicious and ice cream obviously freezes well.
Raspberry jam is insanely easy to make. Equal weights of fruit and sugar, heat slowly to dissolve the sugar, then boil rapidly for five minutes. Bung in jars and screw the lids on while still hot.
The only sterile part is the jars - I put them in a lowish oven for ten minutes or so after washing them. Lids are washed, dried and swabbed with vinegar.
The sterilization part is what I was concerned about. People who make jam the first time don’t necessarily know how critical that is. You really cannot take shortcuts and be like, “I just washed it. It’s fine.”
but if not jam you can go to any local big box store that does home appliances and almost always find a chest freezer for under 100 dollars. Throw the berries into 1 gallon bags and figure the rest out later. I promise you will find more uses for additional freezer space.
my mother in law has given a lot of produce from her garden to the different places that will take it. Hearing her recall the number of years and the amounts donated makes me happy. Just thinking of that is good medicine
It's definitely easy to do. If OP freezes them first then mashes them later it could help break down some of the sugars, but it's a good time, stays a while, and makes easy gift giving.
If I had them, I'd process the strawberries by generously cutting the tops off (don't throw them away!) then putting them on a parchment lined sheet pan to freeze, then once frozen, into freezer safe bags. With the tops, make kvass. Put them in a pitcher with a lot of sugar and some spices, fill the pitcher with boiled and cooled water. Cover loosely with a towel and stir twice a day until fizzy. I have some in my fridge right now and it's delicious!
Alternatively brew them into a nice berry wine. You can take this recipe for skeeterpee (it's fun to say lol) and add the berries in primary fermentation. I've got some mixed berry Skeeterpee finishing up right now and it is really good from the small bit I've tasted
Making jam is not trivial but it I think that makes it rewarding! My dad has made jam and marmalade for as long as I've known and it's always an event. My parents have hundreds of jars (for some reason my dad calls them bottles? Only in a jam context though!) and every so often he cooks up a giant pot of jam with an old-fashioned sugar thermometer, testing the batch on a piece of baking paper, then bottling everything up. He often did it with my sister, who now also makes her own jam.
He labels all the jars, and we've opened jars that were... I dunno, a decade old I'm sure, and they were totally fine. So they will definitely keep for a long time!