Photo by Flickr user leibolmai
Freezing foods is just about the most boring food preservation method. It’s also the easiest and best way to preserve nutrients. But, when it comes to freezing fresh vegetables from the garden there is one important step: blanching. Blanching slows down enzymatic activity that can deteriorate the quality of what you freeze. How much to blanch depends on the vegetable in question. Thankfully there’s a handy publication from Oregon State University, Freezing Fruits and Vegetables, that covers blanching times and many of the other particulars in freezing foods.
One thing not covered in that pamphlet is that some foods like berries, green beans, peas, diced onions, whole-kernel corn etc are more convenient to cook with if you can just pour them out of a freezer bag without having to break them out of a solid mass. To do this you’ll individually quick freeze IQF them. To IQF:
- Wash, blanch (veggies) and cool .
- Spread in one layer on a cookie sheet and place in the freezer for four to six hours.
- Pack in sealed containers or in freezer bags.
- Label with date to avoid freezer mystery bag phenomenon.
Now when the zombie apocalypse arrives and everything goes Beyond Thunderdome, freezing will not be the best option (unless, like Tina Turner, we figure out how to turn pig waste into propane to power our refrigerators). But I digress.
