Strawberries galore

Remember how I told you we had gone and picked strawberries over Mother’s Day weekend, and we ended up with 2 gallons?  Well, that’s a lot of strawberries to try to eat within a few days – even for the 4 of us!

I ended up making freezer jam out of a good half-gallon of them (thanks for the suggestion, guys!) and freezer popsickles out of another 1/4-1/2 gallon, chocolate covered strawberries with a bunch, and I also made two loaves of strawberry bread with a bunch more.  The bread turned out super-yummy, so I’m going to share the recipe with you.  (I froze the second loaf, so hopefully it will taste just as yummy thawed sometime later.)

Strawberry Bread (adapted from a recipe found at AllRecipes.com):

2 cups fresh strawberries: cleaned, hulled and sliced – sprinkle with 1/4 cup sugar and set aside
3 cups plus 2 tbsp flour
1.5 cups sugar, (plus 1/4 cup to sprinkle on strawberries)
1 tbsp cinnamon
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 cup oil
1/4 cup milk
4 eggs, beaten
1 cup chopped pecans

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter and flour two 9×5 loaf pans.
Combine flour, sugar, cinnamon, salt and baking soda in mixing bowl. Blend well. Add eggs, oil and milk to the strawberries and mix. Add strawberry mixture to dry ingredients and stir until blended. Stir in pecans. Divide batter between the two loaf pans. Bake for 45-50 minutes or until center is done. Cool in pans for 10-15 minutes, then turn out and let cool completely.