I love strawberries. Seriously. When I go to the farmers’ market and see the strawberry lady who drives all the way from Oxnard, CA every week, I want to marry her and have her strawberry babies. OK, not really. Oh wait, yes I do!

Strawberries are particularly cheap this time of year. You could get a whole flat of these red beauties at the grocery store for pennies. But how will you use up all that fruit before it starts to rot? I mean, a girl can only eat so many pieces of strawberry shortcake, right?

One way to use up the fruit is to slice it all up, put it in a mixing bowl, sprinkle it with a little sugar, then bag it up in quart-sized storage bags. Label it with the date, then stack these in the freezer. You could also do this with peaches, blueberries, or raspberries. Just be sure to rotate these out of the freezer before they get freezer burn, and you’ll have fruit for smoothies, fruit salads, and sangria.

Homemade jam is another way to utilize seasonal fruit. Here’s an easy recipe from Emeril Lagasse. It will make about 6 jars of jam. If you don’t have jars, you could simply put the jam in little containers and store them in your freezer instead of in the pantry.

Here’s a recipe for Strawberry Shortcake to help you use up some of that frozen fruit later on in the year. Good times, ya’ll! Good times!

2 cups flour
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup chilled butter, cut into chunks
1/3 cup half and half, plus more for brushing
1 large egg, beaten

1. Preheat the oven to 425 ° F. Grease a large baking sheet and set aside.

2. Mix together the flour and sugar in your food processor by pulsing it a few times. Add the butter and pulse 10-12 times until the mixture resembles course grains. In another bowl, mix the egg and the half and half. Then add this to the dry ingredients and pulse until it is just mixed.

3. Drop the dough into small biscuits on the greased baking sheet. You should be able to make 6-8 biscuits. Bake 12-15 minutes, until golden brown.

You can serve this with strawberry jam or thawed strawberries on top with a dollop of whipped cream. You could even do this with fresh fruit – I know . . . a radical concept. No matter what way you serve it up, it’s gonna be delicious!

Photo credit: stock.xchng