Freezing For Later

Have you read the book “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle” by Barbara Kingsolver?  If you haven’t, you really should give it a shot.  I’ve read it twice, and I’m sure I’ll be reading it again in the future, because to me it’s inspiring. When I first began hearing of local and seasonal eating and the whole movement to try and get your food from as many local sources as possible I really thought it didn’t make much sense.  Hello? I live in Northeast Wisconsin, where there could be snow on the ground five months of the year.  If I didn’t buy out-of-season produce at the supermarket, we would subsist solely on meat.  The idea of eating local products as much as possible just didn’t make sense to me.  Then I read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle where they strove to do just that.  What struck a chord with me most was that while they tried to grow much of what they needed themselves, they also supported other farms and producers by buying what they had in season.  When in season, they would buy a bunch of it and preserve it for later, and that’s what never occurred to me about eating locally.

I’ve been doing just that this year.  When different fruits have been in season, I’ve been there, picking and cleaning and turning into jams and preserves, or freezing for pies and crumbles.  Vegetables I’ve been purchasing or picking from the garden and freezing for soup and stew season.  I’ve discovered that the simple act of preparing vegetables for the freezer is way easier than I thought it would be,and I thought I’d share that for anyone who has been eyeing up the mounds of produce available at the markets and wondering what on earth they’d do with all those vegetables.

The first step is to prepare your vegetable. In my case, I’m going with carrots today, as a 25 pound bag cost just $8.00 at the market, and I find frozen carrots in the freezer to be very convenient.  So the carrots have been peeled and washed, followed by a quick slicing.  Notice I’ve used a crinkle cutter.  Hey- I bought that thing at a Pampered Chef party because the nice consultant convinced me my kids would eat vegetables cut into crinkles.  Now it sits away in a drawer unused, except for when carrots are plentiful, because it makes quick work of slicing carrots.  But you can just use a knife if you want.

Drop your carrot coins into a steamer basket.

Meanwhile, you can have a pot of water going on the stove to come to a full boil- we’re going to steam these carrots and retain as much of their nutrients as possible.  When the water is fully boiling on high, go ahead and put your steamer basket full of carrots on the pot, followed by the lid and set a timer for 5 minutes.  If your carrots are tiny, go with 4 minutes.

When the timer goes off, you have two options.  One is to plunge your carrots into ice water. The second is to set your basket in the sink and just run cold water over the carrots.  I went with the second method as I was doing a whole bunch of carrots and didn’t have enough ice.  Once cool to the touch, I spread the carrots out on a baking sheet lined with a tea towel to dry completely.

Finally, pack your carrots into a freezer bag that has been labeled with the item and the date.  The carrots are ready for the freezer! The process is similar for corn, greens, beans, broccoli, cauliflower and asparagus.  The corn (cut off the cob) and asparagus only need 3 minutes, while the greens and beans need 4 minutes of steaming.  This works fantastic when you have just a handful of something too.  I’ve bought broccoli at the market without having plans for it, and then decided to simply freeze it for later.  If you work quickly, the whole process can take only about 15 minutes, depending on the quantity you are preparing.   Come February when I’m itching to make a hearty vegetable stew, I have wonderful locally grown produce at my beckon call.  I love that.  And I love looking at my full freezer.  What are you freezing this year?