Thinking ahead to smoothies

So I bought my first batch of fresh strawberries on Sunday. I bought 2 flats (which were $20 each, more proof that buying direct from the farmers is a great deal for everyone), brought them home and immediately froze them ( apart from the 1 pint I gave to the neighbour kids and the pint I saved for us to eat today). The time and effort that I put into freezing them translates into some delicious smoothies in the winter, when we aren't getting a lot of fresh fruit in our diets. It takes a bit of space initially, and a bit of time, but it is so worth it!

• wash your berries well to remove as much pesticide residue as possible (unless they are organic)


• rinse them and let dry or pat dry with a papertowel (which can be composted, so I suggest that rather than staining your tea towels which you'll struggle to get clean later)


• stem them, and cut any huge ones in half.


• lay them out on a cookie tray, in a single layer, and without them touching each other. Put them in your freezer. If your freezer is too small (or too full) for a cookie tray, you can do it in smaller batches in a pie tin. If your freezer is unable to store even that, you can bag them without freezing first, but they will mush up and freeze together so you'll have to chip them apart when it comes time to use them


• Freeze each batch for a couple of hours, until the strawberries are frozen.


• Transfer the frozen strawberries into a ziploc bag (I wash mine in the laundry machine and reuse them so I don't feel guilty using them) or any plastic container.


• Label them so that you know what's in there and use it up! Don't forget to include the date and year.


• If you plan to keep your options open in terms of perhaps baking with them, you can also measure out a certain amount and package them that way (eg. 1 cup measurements). Make sure you mark the measurement on the container!

I use up the strawberries in baking and smoothies. Even though I put them in the blender frozen and whole, if I add a bit of liquid they blend up without any trouble.

It feels like a total luxury in January to be drinking a fruit smoothie (I preserve as many kinds of fruit as I can this way so I have a variety of options) that tastes great and gives you much needed vitamins and nutrients. It also makes it so easy to get your daily fruit requirement at a time when the fruit is either imported from who-knows-where (grown under who-knows-what conditions) and transported a million miles only to have you pay a fortune for it. It's a very simple and low-tech way to 'eat local' year round, and treat yourself at the same time.