Strive your hand at preserving veggies by freezing them! Freezing greens is a fast, easy approach to protect them for winter meals.
The next is an excerpt from Many Arms Make a Farm by Jack Kittredge and Julie Rawson. It has been tailored for the online.
A Information to Freezing Greens
Freezing greens, particularly in small batches, is kind of easy and fast. It takes solely about ten minutes to freeze a bunch of kale or chard, and that would be the foundation of an important winter meal. When you try no different methodology of meals preservation, do that. Quickly you’ll want to purchase a chest freezer through which to retailer your bounty.
The Technique of Blanching & Freezing Veggies
Blanching (scalding greens in boiling water or steam for a short while) is a should for nearly all greens earlier than freezing them. The quick heating stops enzyme exercise that may trigger lack of taste, colour, and texture over time.
Listed here are crucial tricks to bear in mind for freezing greens:
- For finest outcomes, put together your work space and instruments nicely so you possibly can work shortly and effectively.
- Minimize greens into bite-size items.
- Wait till the water is boiling to immerse the ready greens.
- Begin timing when the pot comes again to a boil. Most greens have to prepare dinner from one to 3 minutes on this a part of the method. The essential factor to observe for is a change to a brighter colour.
- Dump the blanched greens right into a colander within the sink and rinse instantly with chilly water. That is simpler than fussing with cooling the greens in an ice-water tub.
- Squeeze any additional water out of the greens once they arecool, and retailer them in freezer containers that can pack effectively in your freezer.
This process works nicely for a variety of greens. One variable is how lengthy to depart the greens within the boiling water. You are able to do your individual analysis, although I counsel maintaining your course of easy so that you’re extra prone to accomplish it.
Ideas for Freezing Greens
Listed here are some particular ideas primarily based on my expertise.
Basil. I puree the leaves with olive oil within the blender and freeze in ice dice trays. Then come out the frozen cubes and switch to a plastic bag for longer storage.
Broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower. Because of their chunky texture, these brassicas take round three minutes to correctly blanch.
Celery. No blanching wanted however will hold longer within the freezer if blanched.
Edamame or inexperienced soybeans. Boil the bean pods till you possibly can pop the beans out of the shell. Cool them down in water so that you could deal with them comfortably after which pop them out.
Garlic scapes. A month earlier than harvesting stiff-neck garlic is the time to reap scapes. Break off each the stem and the curly bulb head. We chop them and meals course of them with olive oil and freeze in pint containers to be used in soups and stews.
Greens. Spinach, Asian greens, chard, kale, collards, and cabbage solely take a minute or two. We normally strip the kale and collards from their stems earlier than reducing them up, and we minimize out and discard the core from cabbages.
Leeks. Blanch for thirty to forty-five seconds.
Parsley, peppers. No blanching wanted These greens comprise lots of. water naturally. They freeze nicely unblanched and hold their high quality for a number of months.
Starchy greens. For pea pods, take away and discard the stem ends earlier than reducing. For sugar snaps, strip and discard all the string. Blanch for 2 minutes. Shell peas and inexperienced beans want three minutes. Corn (minimize off the cob) wants six to eight minutes.
Summer season squash and zucchini. Slice and boil in a small quantity of water for 2 minutes. Puree with the water after which freeze in plastic containers.
Winter squash. If, when saved on a shelf or within the root cellar, winter squash begin to rot, salvage it by reducing out the unhealthy spots, eradicating the rind, reducing it into small items, after which boiling it in minimal water. Course of and pack as you’d summer time squash.
