Make It Last

Make It Last

Berry season is on it's way.  Strawberries and blackberries are a staple in my home.  We eat berries on our cereal, on peanut butter sandwiches instead of jam, in our dinner salad.  I'll often buy a flat at the farmer's market which will last through the week, sometimes longer.  I keep the berries fresh by rinsing and then air drying them in a colander, before putting them in an airtight container. My trick for making strawberries last is to cut their tops off and slice them in half. This prevents them from shriveling and becoming mealy.   

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Hand Picked

Hand Picked

It was a windy drive down Hwy 1 with two impatient passengers, but once we arrived at the center of town and got out of the car time seemed to stop.  There's a fantastic general store with an attached cafe that opens onto an expansive lawn. It just so happened that day the lawn was also home to a 70's rock jam band; this was not lost on me.  We sat and ate our too big sandwiches(I may have had a glass of white wine)and enjoyed the scene before pushing off to the berry patches down the road.  The place we go to has both olallieberries and strawberries ripe for the picking. With a little instruction the kids were off, although my younger son spent the majority of our time there eating fruit off the plants. Four buckets and one very stained shirt later we'd had ourselves a day. Jam is in the works.

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