Frozen Strawberrys

m.j.w

Just wondering does any shops like tescos sell frozen strawberrys? Got a smoothie today and all that was in it was frozen strawberries, banana and orange juice so just thought i would make it myself

ajjmk

Can you not just buy normal strawberries & put them in the freezer?

m.j.w

yea could do that but just thought it would be dearer to do that than to buy a bag of frozen ones

silverharp

your average Tesco should have them, normally they have a berry mix as well. About €3 to €4 Euro for 500g.

rubadub

Tescos have lots, and far cheaper than fresh. Tesco used to have an own brand of individual smoothie fruit packets. They were like little crisp bags from of various frozen fruit ready to be blended with fruit juice etc.

Kat1170

Saw bags of frozen strawberries in Lidl Naas today. Would think if one has them others will be the same. They were in with the ice creame

annie.t

yeap, i work in lidl and we stock them

scottie pippen

I use the ones from Lidl from time to time, really good value.

& I cut and freeze any fresh fruit in the house if we don't get to use it before it starts to turn.

rubadub

scottie pippen wrote: »

& I cut and freeze any fresh fruit in the house if we don't get to use it before it starts to turn.

You can pick up cheap fruit like this too, my tesco sell blackened bananas off for next to nothing, thats when they are at their best! but can be too squishy for normal eating. I bet you could get stuff on the turn on moore street too.

scottie pippen

rubadub wrote: »

You can pick up cheap fruit like this too, my tesco sell blackened bananas off for next to nothing, thats when they are at their best! but can be too squishy for normal eating. I bet you could get stuff on the turn on moore street too.

thats a great tip, Ill keep my eye out for fruit going cheap near its sell by date



I wouldn't freeze banna's & apples.
but definitely use blackened bananas for smoothies

anything else that's about to turn gets diced and put into bags and into the freezer, oranges, pineapple, grapes, strawberrys, blue berry's, mango. generally only freeze these so they don't go to waste

but its also good to have them on stand by



another thing we do for smoothies if we have fresh fruit is put some natural yogurt into ice cube trays, works great if you want a nice cold smoothie

rubadub

scottie pippen wrote: »

I wouldn't freeze banna's & apples.

Any reason not to? I know bananas will turn to absolute mush when defrosted but thats not a problem. I would dice them so they are not big frozen chunks.

scottie pippen wrote: »

another thing we do for smoothies if we have fresh fruit is put some natural yogurt into ice cube trays

I do this too, the big pots are far better value than small pots but you get loads in the big ones. I also keep frozen yoghurt for tandoori sauce, and my latest sauce -yogurt, garlic, lemon & franks hot sauce.

I also got mini ice cube trays on ebay. These are great if your blender is not that powerful. They come out in tiny cubes about 1cm cubed. If you do not want to risk tainting your tray you can use ice cube bags. I imagine you could mash up overripe bananas and put them in the ice cube trays too.

scottie pippen

I suppose there is no reason not to freeze banana's or apples, I just assumed
they wouldn't be as nice when defrosted or used frozen.


Must check out the small Ice cube trays, I was just half filling standard trays, kind of a waste of space in the freezer

cheers

rubadub

scottie pippen wrote: »

Must check out the small Ice cube trays, I was just half filling standard trays, kind of a waste of space in the freezer

That half filling is a great idea, they should blend easily. When they are frozen you can just break them out into another bag for storage and use the tray again to make more, I nick those plastic bags from the butchers counter in tesco -the veg ones tend to have lots of holes and are weaker.

You could also just sort of half fill the ice cube bags. If stuff is in the freezer a long time it can get that nasty looking frost all over it, so using the bags stops this.

I really got my mini ice cube tray for making my own antacid tablets!

rubadub wrote: »

I came up with an idea to make my own antacid tablets. I got baking soda -sodium bicarbonate, and made it into a paste and spread it into a tray for making mini ice cubes. I then left it to dry out for a few days. Now I turned it over and out pop little hard cubes of baking soda which can be popped like pills. I now get ~1400 tablets for the price of 24!