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a January 24th, 2014

  1. Freezing In Glass

    January 24, 2014 by admin

    We haven’t mastered (yet) the art of canning our summer bounty of garden vegetables.  So, short of taking the step of learning that skill (which is coming!) and gathering the equipment required to pull it off, we thought: “Hey, can’t we just blanch and freeze a bunch of vegetables?”

    Answer: You sure can!

    Although we have picked up a few, we haven’t been able to fill our kitchen with re-usuable, non-BPA plastic freezer containers.  Instead, we use salsa jars that we have IMG_1382thoroughly washed out.  These are a great size- 16 oz.- so they store just what you might need for one dinner.

    The process is simple: anything you have cooked can be stored in glass jars.  We cook our tomatoes down, and into the glass they go.  Roasted pumpkin or squash?  Into the jars.

    Tip:  Make sure to leave some room at the top of every jar prior to freezing to allow for natural expansion!

    If you have veggies like broccoli, or peas or beans- you can blanch them.  Drop them into boiling water for three minutes or so, then drain.  This partial cooking allows you to thaw and cook food when you need it, without anything ending up over cooked!

    With our comparably small garden space, this has worked well for us so far.  Soon we’ll need either a bigger freezer, or to learn how to can.  But for starters, freezing in glass allows you to save summer veggies for use later in the winter.