It’s Strawberry Season

It’s the perfect time of year for my favorite fruit: strawberries!

Strawberry season actually varies depending on which region you’re in: they peek in April in Florida and Texas, May in the deep South, and in early June in middle sections and later June in the far northern US and Canada.

If you’re lucky enough to have your own little crop of berries, you may have ended up running out to grab a few more when using them in a recipe. If you buy them from the store, though, you’ve probably found that berries in those little plastic baskets aren’t always easy to measure out, which would be useful to know ahead of time when you find yourself a few berries short.

Here are some basic measures for fresh strawberries:

* 1 pint strawberries = 2 cups whole berries
* 1 pint strawberries = 2-1/4 cups sliced berries
* 1 pint strawberries = 1-3/4 cups pureed berries
* 1 pint strawberries contains about 16 to 20 medium size berries or 12 to 14 large berries.

* 1-1/2 to 2 quarts of fresh strawberries are needed for a 9″ pie
* 1 cup of strawberries weighs about 4 to 5 ounces
* 1 quart of strawberries weighs about 1-1/4 to 1-1/2 pounds
* 1 flat of strawberries contains 8 quarts and weighs about 12 pounds

You can even substitute fresh berries in a recipe that calls for frozen: 2 cups of sliced fresh strawberries equal one 20 oz. package of frozen strawberries.

[image: flickr]