What to do with too many raspberries and strawberries?
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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!
Making jam is trivial.
You boil the fruit, and if it's not gummy enough, you add pectin.
Done, jam.
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grind it up fine enough and you could rail or boof it
I'm trying to imagine what a bump of rass would be like. i just... hmm.
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I'm trying to imagine what a bump of rass would be like. i just... hmm.
could prob boof some blueberries without issue
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could prob boof some blueberries without issue
This is true but less interesting to me because I once had a job in a bakery making blueberry muffins. I had 50 lb bags of frozen blueberries that upon opening, would emit large clouds of blueberry aroma. Day after day, thousands of pounds of blueberries, so much blueberry vapor. I grew to hate the smell. I begged to be put on some other kind of muffin, but nope, I was the youngest and therefore lowest status in the bakery. So I'm not really a fan of blueberries.
Thank you for coming to my Ted talk.
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This is true but less interesting to me because I once had a job in a bakery making blueberry muffins. I had 50 lb bags of frozen blueberries that upon opening, would emit large clouds of blueberry aroma. Day after day, thousands of pounds of blueberries, so much blueberry vapor. I grew to hate the smell. I begged to be put on some other kind of muffin, but nope, I was the youngest and therefore lowest status in the bakery. So I'm not really a fan of blueberries.
Thank you for coming to my Ted talk.
This is true but less interesting to me because...
Soo... how many blueberries would you say you can boof?
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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.
Pies
Freeze them
Dry them
Jam
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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.
Me please
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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.
Jam or give away to your neighbours.
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This is true but less interesting to me because...
Soo... how many blueberries would you say you can boof?
I see. Thanks for clarification. I assumed we were talking about snorting lines of powdered fruit. When it comes to putting blueberries into my butthole, I'd say I could manage half a pint, maybe more.
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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.
Strawberry shortcake for every meal
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I used to make raspberry wine. Super easy. Some raspberries, sugar, and yeast. Put it in a barrel, wait a while, get shitfaced.
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.
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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.
Too many?
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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.
As someone that cans, I'd never suggest a canning option to anyone but someone who has already canned. It's tiring! It's hot! It can be sticky!
Amazing end results if you like doing it though!
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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.
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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.”
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Making jam is trivial.
You boil the fruit, and if it's not gummy enough, you add pectin.
Done, jam.
How much sugar do you add?
How long do you boil it for? (You don't know; you have to monitor the temperature)
How long does putting it all in jars take you? (ages)
It's not difficult, but it is time consuming and not trivial.
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::: spoiler spoiler
aklsdfjaksl;dfjkl;asdf
:::And with this heat? No thank you.
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How about some sweet berry wine?
But, but.. Botanically speaking neither strawberries nor raspberries are actual berries. Fun fact: grapes are, so that makes any regular wine a berry wine.
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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.
could make juice, then make something with the pulp too
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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.”
I'm still eating blackcurrant jam I made in 2013. I use jars whose lids have the pop-up seals. Pour hot jam into hot jars, screw on the lid and the little thingie in the middle should pop down as it cools, showing it's sealed. When you open the jar it pops up again, to show the seal is broken. Just about all my jars come from a particular brand of pitted kalamata olives I'm partial to. Perfect size for jam.
When I was a child mum sealed the jars of jam with a disc of cellophane that had been dampened in vinegar, fastened with a rubber band. Pretty good seal actually, it tightened as the jam cooled. But if the jam went mouldy we'd just scrape the mould off - no big deal.
