That time is here in Texas and I went a little overboard at the farmers’ market. Surprise, surprise coming from the fruit hoarder. But, to my credit, it was such a good deal, bulk buying rocks…12 pints of ripe and ready strawberries made their way home with me over the weekend.

In addition to the 16 various-sized jars of strawberry jam I made (I won’t make the mistake again of under-preserving my fave jam of the year), I decided to freeze a stash. For smoothies, for ice cream, for anything that needs strawberry’ing. You can make jam from frozen berries, too!

I hulled the berries by just slicing them in half and then slicing out any of the white parts (In case I feel the need to make more jam, where I’d need a hulled berry). Then space your berries out on a cookie sheet, or even better, a cooling rack on top of a cookie sheet.

You’re going to flash freeze your berries like this for 10 minutes, which will keep them from all sticking together once you put them in a freezer bag later.

After 10 minutes exposed to the open air tundra of your freezer, corral the berries into a freezer bag and then use the fancy sealing trick you picked up last year.

Voila! Pop a few out at a time and use as you would a fresh berry.