Frugal Find Friday-Strawberry Shortcake

Welcome to Frugal Find Friday!

This is a bit different than most of the Frugal Finds I expect to post, but thought it was a good example of how we live so frugally and yet live so well. I wrote about canning strawberry jam from fruit that I got for free here. Within the containers of strawberries there were some perfect berries that I decided to use for a little treat. I also got the whipping cream for free because it was on its sell by date and we were going to dump it down the drain at work. I find it hard to toss completely usable items and took it home instead. We couldn't use it all up when I first got it, so about 1 1/2 cups were frozen for use at a later date...turned out to be this week!

I stemmed, washed, diced and very lightly mashed about 1 1/2 cups of strawberries with a little sugar. These I let sit while we ate dinner so they could release their juices and be perfect for strawberry short cake. The whipped cream was sweet as well, but with only about a Tbsp of sugar and a tsp of vanilla extract. The shortcakes were a very simple recipe that I found in the Encyclopedia of American Cooking. They cooked while dinner was in the over so no extra energy was even used when making the shortcakes. I sliced two berries and put one on top of each of our desserts to make the presentation just a little cuter.

The reason this is my Frugal Find for the week is because of how very, very little it cost to make. The strawberries were free, the whipping cream was free and my only cost was a bit of sugar, flour, butter and such for the shortcakes and to sweeten. The whipped cream was a bit grainy because the cream had been frozen before, but really it wasn't bad at all. My husband was so excited to see this for dessert and I was excited because it was frugal and it was real food. It didn't take long at all for these to disappear!

If you have any Frugal Finds to share let me know and I'll add them to the post. Have a great weekend!

Heather