Fruity follies
I am on a very healthy path right now and reveling in nature’s abundance of wonderful fruits and veggies. I am also trying to reduce food waste because I tend to find that through the passage of time and my busy life, some of my poor veggies tend to expire in the confines of the graveyard that is my crisper. It really kills me to throw out food. Our society is so lucky to have a seemingly endless supply of foodstuffs and my little halo wearing angel on my shoulder always tuts and shakes her head at me when I throw out a lettuce that has gone funky, when I should have used it up a few days earlier, because there are people in our society that can’t afford to replace that lettuce with a fresher one. So I HATE food wastage and really try not to throw out food if I can help it.
The first Saturday of the month here is the day our nearest Farmer’s Market is on. My husband and I love to attend fresh food markets and find the produce is the same price, if not less that the supermarkets. When my husband caught me zeroing in on the strawberry seller he stopped short of holding me back but yelled out a very impassioned “NO!”
See, strawberries are one of the most frequent victims in our house of the early death that our terribly unkind fridge seems to bring to anything with cells. Also, in a household of 5, there are only two of us who eat strawberries. I also tend to find that the strawberries from the supermarkets are almost DOA when I get them home. My fridge just tends to finish the job.
So I give my husband my most patient smile and tell him I promise that these strawberries will be fine. They are $5 a 500g punnet or two for $9. He nearly expires when he sees me grab two of them…ahhh I am a sucker for a bargain! Its ok, I assure him, I have plans for these strawberries!
In determination that my beautiful berries do not meet an untimely end in the death trap that is my fridge, I made it a priority to use them up. My son willingly had some in his fruit salad, I snacked on them once or twice and even had some with a tiny bit of cream and some nice but not naughty chocolate cake…talk about divine!
The next day with a good 700 grams still left I decided it was time to give my home economist skills a workout. I set about pureeing the rest of the berries with my hand held food mill. I sweetened some with a tiny splash of pure maple syrup and using some plastic moulds I made ice creams for my 5 year old using just the puree and some fat free natural yoghurt. He polished off two in a row. Mum=1, junk food addicted 5 year old=0. The rest of the berry puree I froze into ice cubes. I ended up with around 34 cubes of around 1tbs each. The possibilities for what I can do with these cubes is endless. Here are some of the things I plan to do:
- add to porridge to sweeten naturally
- make a refreshing summer slushie with just ice, frozen puree and pomegranate juice.
- defrost and swirl through bran muffin batter
- defrost and stir through yoghurt
I also have the added satisfaction of reminding my husband everytime I am eating something that contains these strawberries; “Look honey, you were wrong!”. 
Kimmy xox
