- Make It Yourself Lavender Heart-Shaped Bath Bombs!
- 20 Things You Never Knew About “Down There”
- 12 Best Foods For Those Suffering From Arthritis Pain
- 12 Personal Hygiene Mistakes Almost Everyone Makes (Mom Never Told You About #4!)
- 15 Medicinal Plants And Herbs From The Cherokee People
- 12 Mind-Blowing Benefits Of Drinking Coconut Water During Pregnancy
- 12 Outstanding Winter Foods That Won’t Fatten You Up Like A Christmas Turkey
Make Your Own Healthy Frozen Vegetable Packages
Photo credit: bigstock.com
Alright, now you are ready to start freezing your own organic vegetables.
1. Choose Your Veggies
This might be the most difficult choice! If you have vegetables from your own garden, then the choice is already made. However, if you are looking through your local farmers’ market, you might be wondering how you will ever decide which vegetables to choose from! For beginners, you can choose whatever is in season, or you can choose your favorites, or perhaps a mix of both. Once you have your chosen veggies at home, wash them, then chop or dice them as you wish. Since most recipes call for chopped veggies, which is usually the best choice. You can always dice or cut them into smaller pieces later if you need to.
2. Blanching
Although you can skip this if you are only freezing veggies for next week, if you wait any longer and you will need to blanch them. This will stop the enzymes from altering the food. If you don’t do this, your veggies will take on strange colors, textures, and flavors. Some of them will also become really tough, almost like rubber and no one wants to eat a rubber carrot. Tomatoes, garlic, and mushrooms don’t need to be blanched.
Boil one gallon of water for every 1.5 pounds of veggies. The more you can do at one time the less time it takes. Using a wire sieve, colander, or wire basket, put the veggies in the boiling water and start timing them immediately. Most veggies need about 3 minutes, but double check online for your particular vegetable. When the time is up, remove from the boiling water and dunk them in a sink of ice water to stop the cooking process. Once they are cool, take them out and put the vegetables on wire racks or paper towels and allow them to air dry for about 10 minutes.
Continue to Page 3
