|
by Christi Lee
‘Tis the season when prominent displays of canning and pickling supplies begin to appear in grocery and hardware stores. From now through late September, the vegetables being harvested in Wisconsin are at their peak of variety and abundance. You might be drawn to the idea of preserving some of this bounty to enjoy at a future date yet feel daunted by the idea of acquiring a lot of specialized canning gear or sweating over a hot water bath canner during a heat wave. Even the method recommended most often for freezing vegetables—dunking them into boiling water first (aka. blanching)—can steam up your kitchen when you’d rather use your free time lounging in the shade with a cold drink and a novel.
Fortunately, there are some vegetables that can be easily preserved in the freezer without methods that require heat. Among food blog writers and cookbook authors, opinions vary widely when it comes to the best ways to prepare produce for the freezer, that is: to blanch or not to blanch. Therefore, the tips offered here come from my own experience as a longtime CSA member, home gardener, and Farmer’s Market shopper.
The argument for blanching is that it stops enzymes that lead to decay and thereby preserves the flavor, color, and texture of fresh produce. Nonetheless, by trial and error over the years I’ve found that many vegetables look and taste fine when frozen raw and later taken straight from the freezer to be added to whatever I’m cooking.
The most important tip I’ve found for freezing raw vegetables successfully comes from Janet Ballantyne’s Joy of Gardening Cookbook: make sure everything is as dry as possible before placing the prepared produce in freezer bags or containers.
It might seem counterintuitive to recommend that you bring produce destined for the freezer to room temperature before preparing it—but as you may have noticed, moisture condenses on everything you take from the refrigerator. That makes it nearly impossible to bring your vegetables to a dry-enough state until they warm up. That’s why I like to prepare some of my veggies for the freezer straight from the CSA box, simply washing them and patting dry with a cotton towel.
The other important tip is to minimize air space in whatever containers you choose for storage. Fill rigid freezer containers to the designated line; squeeze extra air out of plastic bags before sealing. I use containers that have screw-top, rather than snap-on lids. Snack-sized zip-top bags work great for storing herbs and especially for peppers: one not-overly-large pepper fits into one bag, so I can easily gauge quantities for recipes. I place the individually-bagged peppers into a larger bag, which helps my freezer stay reasonably organized.
And don’t forget to label your containers and bags with a waterproof marker! Indicate pre-measured quantities where relevant.
The Raw Produce Freezing Guide is given here as a PDF document you can download or print out for easy reference.
| 
