Prepare strawberries FAST

[Kayelle]

My husband and I spend time each week helping to feed the needy in our community, and this week we cleaned and prepared 20 flats of locally grown and donated strawberries, for serving. Phewwww!!

Here's the tip..get a package plastic drinking straws from the grocery...the kind that are bigger for drinking smoothies, NOT the "flex straws". Holding the berry between your thumb and forefinger, top end up, run the straw all the way thru the bottom of the berry popping out the core and the stem at once. We grow very large berries in these parts, but small berries could use a smaller straw. This is really slick, and fast...hardly any waste either. Wish I could give someone credit for where I heard this, but alas...I do well to remember what I had for dinner last night.

Anyone else have any great cooking tips?

 

[velochic]

No great cooking tips, but I will probably not give up my method of just using a paring knife. I put up about 30 pints of strawberry jam every spring and I still think that just a quick flick of the wrist with a good, sharp paring knife is the fastest way to prepare strawberries.

 

[Kayelle]

No great cooking tips, but I will probably not give up my method of just using a paring knife. I put up about 30 pints of strawberry jam every spring and I still think that just a quick flick of the wrist with a good, sharp paring knife is the fastest way to prepare strawberries.

I agree velochic that I can do it pretty darn fast that way too, however the straw method also removes the hard core on big berries........and the best part is that little kids will get a bang out of helping.
Always another way of doing things.

 

[sparrowgrass]

I have a little dohickey that looks like a tiny melon baller, but with teeth--it zips the core out of strawberries or tomatoes in a flash. I think it is called a tomato shark.

 

[Mimizkitchen]

Kayelle what a fantabulous approach to coring the strawberries, unfortunetly in my neck of the woods strawberry season is over, and i'm so spoiled by our local grown, from plant city, that I refuse to buy the ones shipped in... The ones grown locally here do not have the white core center but are red all the way thru and very sweet which is great for my strawberry cupcakes...

One tip I can think of right now is using a spoon to peel fresh ginger, but i'm sure many of you already do that... I will think of some more after I have had my coffee...

 

[Rachel Keeth]

Wish I could give someone credit for where I heard this, but alas...I do well to remember what I had for dinner last night.

I saw that same tip last year on The Rachael Ray Show, somebody sent a video in on how to do it. If only I could remember the stuff I want to remember!

 

[CookLikeJulia]

Me too, I just saw that to Rachel Ray Show. I wish I could remember that also.