Check it out.
It’s berry time! This weekend, my neighbor and his wife asked me if I wanted to go berry picking with them. We went around the hill to a dirt road lined with berries. The raspberries are mostly done, though I got a few. Mostly, I got blackberries. A gallon of them.
And many more still coming on, so I’ll be back sometime this week to pick again. Meanwhile, I took them home and got out my food strainer. (See ALL about my food strainer here.) I had told my neighbor about my food strainer and they were fascinated and amazed so I brought them up to the studio to demonstrate. They wanted to get the seeds out of their berries, and there is nothing that makes that easier than a really good food strainer.
Cleaned berries:
Food strainer, using a berry screen:
(I processed the raspberries and blackberries together for a berry mix.) Just put the berries in the hopper….
Push down with the plunger while cranking the strainer and the seeds and heavier pulp come out one side and the seedless berry pulp comes out the other.
It’s so easy. To get more, I take the seeded pulp and push it through a second time.
In the end, I got about a gallon of pulpy seedless berry juice to play with.
This bag was already frozen when I remembered to take a picture. I put it in the freezer because I don’t have time this week to make anything. I can make jam, straight from the bag, or I can process it further in a jelly bag to get out all the pulp if I wanted to make jelly or syrup. Probably, I’ll make jam, but I’ll decide that later.
My neighbors were impressed and amazed. I let them borrow my Squeezo to take home and do their berries and they’re planning to buy one. Because no one can see a Squeezo make nothing out of something that is otherwise hard work and not want to buy one.
It was hot, hot, HOT, but a fun day. Berry picking is the best kind of afternoon in the country–taking the time to do something productive, in the woods, in the peace, harvesting free food that Nature is just throwing in our faces at this time of year. Who needs air conditioning and TV? It’s BERRY TIME! Are you picking?
