Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Freezing your Produce

Other then canning, another option for saving your bounty is freezing. I froze lots of green beans and even some zucchini this year to save it for winter.

In order to preserve something for freezing you need to blanche it first. This means right after you pick you lovely produce, bring it in to the house and clean it you need to throw it into a pot of boiling water for 3-5 minutes (depending on the vegetable) then strain and immediately cool it in ice water. This will give you the very best results for freezing, along with a good freezer bag and a deep-freeze.

You can use re-usable containers for freezing, but for the best results you need something you can remove all the air from first. This year I'm going to try to procure a vacuum-pack system and give that a whirl.

Some veggies freeze with greater success then others.
I.e. I wouldn't be munching on that zucchini I froze, it's pretty mushy once it's defrosted; but it still goes great in sauces or zucchini bread!

Also some varieties freeze better then others, and you can find that out on your seed package, or by looking up your variety online. For some of my vegetables I plant half for a fresh-crop and half for a freezer-crop (specifically with beans).

All in all, freezing is a great way to extend the season of your veggie crop and help create delicious mid-winter meals when the green of the garden is a distant memory.

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