Nada más pelar el kiwi, lo corté y lo mezclé con unas fresas.

In this sentence, nada más + infinitive is an idiomatic time expression. It means as soon as... or right after....

So:

Nada más pelar el kiwi = As soon as I peeled the kiwi / Right after peeling the kiwi

On its own, nada más can mean nothing else or no more, but in this structure it marks immediate sequence in time.

Because after nada más, Spanish often uses the infinitive to introduce an action that happened immediately before the main action.

So the pattern is:

nada más + infinitive

Examples:

• Nada más llegar, me llamó. = As soon as he arrived, he called me.
• Nada más terminar, salimos. = As soon as we finished, we left.

Here, pelar stays in the infinitive because the main verb that carries the past tense is corté.

The subject is understood to be the same as the subject of the main verbs: yo.

So the sentence is understood as:

Nada más pelar el kiwi, yo lo corté y yo lo mezclé...

Spanish often leaves subjects unstated when they are clear from the verb forms. Since corté and mezclé are clearly I forms, we understand that I also did the peeling.

Because kiwi is a masculine singular noun in Spanish when it refers to the fruit, so the direct object is el kiwi.

That matters later too:

• el kiwi
• lo corté
• lo mezclé

The pronoun lo matches the masculine singular noun kiwi.

Lo is the direct object pronoun replacing el kiwi.

Instead of saying:

Nada más pelar el kiwi, corté el kiwi...

Spanish replaces the repeated noun with a pronoun:

Nada más pelar el kiwi, lo corté...

Since kiwi is masculine singular, the pronoun is lo.

Because each verb normally takes its own object pronoun.

So:

• lo corté = I cut it
• lo mezclé = I mixed it

Spanish usually does not let one object pronoun automatically cover a later conjugated verb. Repeating lo is the normal, clear, natural way to say it.

If you omitted the second lo, the sentence might still be understandable from context, but lo corté y lo mezclé is the better standard form.

Because they describe completed actions in the past.

The speaker is narrating a sequence of finished steps:

1. peeled the kiwi
2. cut it
3. mixed it with strawberries

That is why Spanish uses the preterite:

• corté
• mezclé

Using the imperfect, such as cortaba or mezclaba, would suggest an ongoing, habitual, or background action instead, which does not fit this sequence as well.

Because they are first-person singular preterite forms of -ar verbs.

Pattern:

• cortar → corté
• mezclar → mezclé

That final -é is the normal ending for yo in the preterite of -ar verbs, and it carries a written accent.

The accent helps show both:

• the correct stress
• that this is a past-tense form, not another form such as corte or mezcle

Unas fresas means some strawberries or a few strawberries.

The word unas is an indefinite article, so it presents them as unspecified strawberries, not a specific already-known set.

Compare:

• con unas fresas = with some strawberries
• con fresas = with strawberries, more general or ingredient-like

Both are possible, but con unas fresas sounds more like actual individual strawberries used in that moment.

Grammatically, lo is the thing being presented as the main direct object, so the sentence frames it as:

I mixed it (the kiwi) with some strawberries.

But in practical meaning, the result is that the kiwi and strawberries were mixed together.

If you changed the focus, you could also say:

• Mezclé unas fresas con el kiwi.

That would shift the grammatical spotlight to unas fresas, but the overall real-world result is very similar.

Because Nada más pelar el kiwi is an introductory time clause placed before the main clause.

In Spanish, when this kind of subordinate clause comes first, it is normally separated with a comma:

Nada más pelar el kiwi, lo corté y lo mezclé...

This is similar to English punctuation in sentences like:

After peeling the kiwi, I cut it...

Yes. A few natural alternatives are:

• En cuanto pelé el kiwi, lo corté y lo mezclé con unas fresas.
• Apenas pelé el kiwi, lo corté y lo mezclé con unas fresas.
• Después de pelar el kiwi, lo corté y lo mezclé con unas fresas.

The differences are small:

• nada más + infinitive = very immediate, very concise
• en cuanto / apenas = as soon as
• después de = after, slightly less immediate

The original sentence sounds very natural and efficient.