One of the biggest lessons we have learned in our marriage was how to speak each others’ Love Language. Mandy’s is quality time and thus we spend a lot of time doing fun things together. Now is the time of the year when those things happen on a more regular basis when we get to go outside. One of our favorites each year is strawberry picking!

This year we went to Washington Farms for our annual haul of freshly picked berries. They have row after row of strawberries and they just hand you a bucket and send you off! Once you fill it up, you bring it back up to the counter to pay and head off to make yummy things with them! Mandy rocked her awesome #FORGwinnett shirt this year and we had a competition to see who could find the “weirdest” strawberry. Our cashier was the judge and Mandy won – hers had a hollow center!

When we got home, we had two huge bucketfuls of strawberries and we got overwhelmed quickly. We froze a bunch and then made strawberry jam as well as a batch of strawberry frozen yogurt!

We got some special pectin this year that is designed for use in sugar-free jams. We mixed that with a bunch of mashed strawberries and stevia. After boiling per the box’s instructions, we stuck it in jars overnight and had some awesome homemade jam for only 10 calories per tablespoon!

For the yogurt, we blended 1 cup of nonfat Greek yogurt with 1/2 pound of strawberries, 2 tbsp of lemon juice, and some stevia in the blender. After, we mixed in an additional 1/2 pound of diced strawberries so that our fro-yo would have some chunks of fruit. We poured that mixture into our ice cream maker, waited 20 minutes and then stashed it in the freezer overnight in a tupperware container. Full disclosure – we had frozen yogurt for breakfast the next day because we just couldn’t wait to try it! It was delicious and only 73 calories for a bowl. I think food tastes better when you know that you cooked it yourself and that the ingredients are as fresh as can be 🙂