One of the simplest ways to store food is in the freezer. You can freeze just about anything - fruits, veggies, herbs, meat, jelly, baked goods - with little equipment save a freezer and some plastic bags or other containers. This week I had the opportunity to buy 20# of fresh green beans from a local farmer. While I saved some for fresh eating, and made a small batch of lactofermented dilly beans, the rest of the green beans were frozen. This post will show you how to blanche and freeze green beans so you can enjoy them all winter long! Should I Blanche Green Beans Before Freezing? Almost all vegetables should be blanched before freezing. Blanching stops enzymatic activity which can … [Read more...]
How to Preserve Beet Greens
With a hard freeze on the horizon, I spent much of the weekend preparing the garden for the cold and harvesting vegetables for the root cellar. Although my beets may have survived the freeze, I opted to lift them out of the ground - after all, the sooner I prepare my garden for winter, the sooner I can move on to my favorite winter activity: knitting. When you pull 70 or so beets out of the ground, you end up with a LOT of beet greens. I have written previously about vegetable storage in a root cellar, and intend to store my beets with these methods. This blog post will show you how to preserve beet greens for winter eating. How to Preserve Beet Greens The first step in preserving beet … [Read more...]
How to Preserve Eggplant for Winter Eating
Do you love eggplants as much as I do? They are such a seasonal food, only available in the hottest of summer months, and taste delicious in so many ways - in curries, roasted, grilled, and mixed up in dips and spreads like zacusca or baba ganoush. They are also a crop that does very well here in NE Missouri. They thrive in the hot, humid summers, and even better, our local CSA farmer has a HUGE crop each summer. I grow them in our garden, and also buy dozens of large eggplants to preserve. While I do love to make and pressure can zacusca, a tasty eggplant spread, the simplest way I know how to preserve eggplant for winter is the one I'll share with you today. How to Preserve … [Read more...]