This is just one of my freezers and it gives me a small sense of pride when I realize all the time I put into packing it full. Not to mention all the money I saved! I love being able to open the freezer door and know that I prepared all this food and saved our family lots of money in the process. PLUS- it all tastes better than the stuff off the store shelves. This freezer is packed full of items I have prepared and froze. Homemade jam, homemade salsa, fresh green beans, sweet corn, cut and prepared chicken breasts, hamburger (93% lean, purchased on sale and packaged into individual bags), fresh broccoli, homemade applesauce, fish, rhubarb, and more!
A good follow up to last week's post, freezing fruit, I thought would be how to freeze vegetables. Freezing veggies is a little different in that you have to blanch (partially cook) the vegetable before freezing. The most common vegetable I freeze is green beans. We love fresh green beans and by freezing them, we can enjoy them year round. As stated in the previous blog post, I keep an eye out for when green beans go on sale ($0.99/pound or less) and stock up!
I was able to grab some broccoli on sale earlier in the week ($0.99 per bundle). There was no way we'd eat it all before it went bad, so I decided to freeze it and have it handy for later use.
Just as you would with fruit, make sure your produce is well washed before moving forward. (I use an organic fruit wash found in the produce section at the grocery store).
Once your vegetables are washed, you can begin cutting and preparing it. For broccoli, cut the broccoli florets and stems (I personally don't are for the stem part of broccoli, so I don't prepare it. If you do, cut and prepare it as you normally would). If you're doing green beans, cut the ends off the beans.
In a large stock pot, bring water to a boil. Put cut broccoli (green beans) in the water and cook for 3 minutes. While the broccoli is cooking, cover a cookie sheet with a flour sack towel and fill a large bowl with cold water and add ice cubes.When the vegetables have cooked for 3 minutes, put immediately into the ice bath. This will stop the cooking process. Allow the broccoli to completely cool in the ice bath and then lay in a single layer on the towel-lined cookie sheet.
Once the broccoli (vegetables) have dried, you can go about the next step one of two ways:
1) Line a cookie sheet with freezer paper and freeze the vegetables in a single layer. Once the vegetables are completely frozen, bag the vegetables.OR
2) Put into a freezer bag in a single layer and freeze.
**(When I freeze green beans, I will put my desired amount right into the bag and freeze. I don't worry about freezing in a single layer or freezing before bagging simply because when I go to cook them, I use the entire bag. My bag was froze with my desired amount and I don't have to worry about breaking them apart for separate uses. I use the entire bag of green beans when I pull them out of the freezer, therefore, freezing in a single layer is not important. This can be done for any vegetable, if you know you will use the entire bag when you take it from the freezer, you can skip the freezing in a single layer/freezer paper. Does that make sense?!)
Okay- once the vegetables are frozen/ bagged, make sure you label them and you're done! This process can go fairly quickly and when you look at the grand scheme of things- it's saving you so much money! Plus, as I said before, it tastes so much better than the stuff you get off the shelves in the store.
Freezing vegetables and fruits is a great way to preserve the flavors of summer and enjoy them all year. Just like freezing sweet corn- it's something you get once a year but not limited to eating it just in the summer. I hope you are able to use this insight and try it yourself. Looking for sales, stocking up, preparing good quality food, and saving money is something I can get behind and feel good about!
