PUTTING UP STRAWBERRIES

I have the best luck with my coworkers!

Another sweet coworker had a glut of fruit and offered it to me.  Everyone at work knows that 2nd Man likes to cook/bake and so I always get offered excesses of ingredients since they know it will go to a good home. 

This time it was two pounds of fresh strawberries!

Yes please!

We have a strawberry huller somewhere in the back of a drawer but a few years back, I discovered using a straw and enjoy that method.  It's more difficult with a regular straw as they bend too easily, but we have these hard plastic straws in the bar drawer (they are reusable, meant to be washed) and I used one of those.

It takes a couple of times to get it just right but when you do, it's super easy, you just push it from the bottom up through to the top and...

...you get the core and the stem/leaves all at once.  Usually you can grab the stem from the end of the straw and pull the whole thing out.  If the stem breaks off though, no worries the core part will just push though and come out the other end as you use it.

There's something oddly relaxing about doing it, ha.

Here's a plate full of the stems and cores.

Here they are after I cut them in half.  I figured it would be easier for future use if they were already in half.  I did sprinkle a bit of sugar over them and then...

...I spread them out on a parchment lined baking sheet and popped them in the freezer for a few hours.  We always do our fruit this way, it freezes them individually and keeps them from mushing up when vacuum sealing or sticking together later as they thaw.

Once they were frozen like this, I split them into two packages of a pound each (seemed like a good amount for a dessert) and vacuum sealed them.

Not enough for jam or something like that but ready for strawberry shortcake perhaps?