This has been a busy week harvesting the vegetables. Peas, broccoli, carrots, lima beans, pinto beans, tomatoes, sweet bell peppers, and French Horticulture beans all came ready at once. Baskets of vegetables lined the kitchen and down the hall. Tired, sore muscles begged for Aspercreme (terrific odorless creme)! Once the organic produce is in the house, we had to process it for winter storage. Time to get out the cutting boards and kitchen knives and start to trim, peel and chop. Once the veggies are cleaned and ready, we use a large stock pot with a strainer insert to blanch them. (Our preferred method of food storage is to freeze it.) A good canning/freezing cookbook will have all the blanching times in it for each vegetable. After blanching, you have to cool the produce immediately. We use ice water. Be sure to make enough ice cubes ahead of time so you can save money by not having to buy the ice. We use large clean bathtowels on the counter to drain the produce once they are removed from the ice water and paper towels to pat them dry (we prefer Bounty). They don't have to be totally DRY but they freeze better without the excess moisture. We use a Foodsaver Professional III model vacuum sealer to package all our vegetables . They last a lot longer than using other methods of freezing. We still are using produce from three years ago with no freezer burn.
This next week will find us rototilling the gardens in preparation for winter. That's all for now. May you have a bountiful harvest!
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