Stoked to be at Hall Family Farm!

When it comes to local eating, strawberry season is my favorite time of year (although autumn apples are pretty high on the list as well…)  So much delicious goodness from such a beautiful little berry!  The past few weeks have been a yummy blur of picking, eating, and experimenting in the kitchen.  Some of our results were gobbled up right away, others got tossed into the deep freeze for later.  Below are our favorite ways to take advantage of the strawberry season.

Strawberry Chia Freezer Jam

This is seriously the bomb, ya’ll!  And the best part about it is that we’ll be able to resurrect it come December when we are all yearning for a taste of summer!  As far as jam goes, I made this one pretty low sugar – a little over 1/2 cup for 5 cups of berries.  Simmer on the stove to let the juices run, then toss in 1/4 cup of chia seeds along with lemon zest and juice (I used just under 1/2 a lemon.)  I used a single serving blender to puree it (the chia seeds still gave it plenty of good texture), then poured everything into mason jars after about 15 minutes when it got nice and thick.  YUM!!!

Strawberry Lemonade Sorbet

My neighbor let us experiment with her ice cream maker…and all I can say is WOW!  We made the most brightest, most intense sorbet I’d ever had.  For a crisp, refreshing dessert that has a lot of good-for-you in it, this is the ticket!  Best part was no weird ingredients, just strawberries, lemon juice, and a little sugar (I’m starting to notice a theme with ingredients here.)

Dried Strawberries

This was so easy to do that it can hardly be called a “recipe”, but they were so good that I have to mention it.  All we did was chop up some berries, spread them out on parchment paper, and dry them out in the oven for a few hours….and voila!  The only problem was that out of two trays of berries, the yield was only about a cup.  Not so great in the efficiency department, but they were as tasty as candy!

On our list of yet to try is some sort of strawberry cobbler/pie and fruit leather.  If anyone has any favorite recipes they’d be willing to share, we’d love to hear ’em!