harvest knives
Using your share:
The beginning of August is a good time to start thinking about putting a few things in the freezer for winter. It is the time when social life is in full swing and many home meals are missed. The time when shares are bountiful. I am not yet ready to admit that winter exists but I am beginning to sense the light fading. It is a good time to begin to put a few things in the freezer as an extension of dinner preparation. Even with a small freezer you can tuck a few items away for later. Here are a few easy items I start to freeze.
Herbs Butter: with parsley, dill, cilantro and scallion greens
Herb Pesto: with cilantro, basil and parsley (can be frozen in small ice cube squares and transferred to a plastic bag.)
Green Beans: extra can be blanched for 2 minutes in boiling water then chilled for 4 minutes. Dry and freeze.
Peppers: Can be sliced thin and either boiled for 2 minutes and chilled for two minutes dried and frozen or just frozen raw.
Vegetable Stock: This is really wonderful to have on hand when fall soup season rolls around. It can be made with vegetable scraps, extra greens, onions, herbs, scallions, almost any extra vegetable. Cool before freezing in ready to use portions.
Vegetable Soups: Summer soups really hit the spot on cold fall days when life is too busy and there is not enough sunlight. Make a pot for dinner and freeze the leftovers immediately after soup cools to room temperature. This is a good way to use your share up if you won’t be around for much of the week.
Zucchini: The summer squashes do not freeze well. A big zucchini is enough to make a double batch of zucchini bread or muffins which freeze very well. If you are more ambitious, zucchini relish cans easily (recipe below).
Beets: These become rubbery when frozen. Yuck. But a spicy beet relish canned if you are more ambitious is delicious.
Carrots: These freeze well but a simple carrot soup with a melting patty of herb butter is a real treat and almost as easy to make.
On the farm we are waiting for dry weather to begin the onion harvest. Summer onions that you are getting in shares now are best kept in the refrigerator. If you’d like to keep carrots snip the carrot from the green, wash well and keep in a bag or container with a lid in the refrigerator. We will be distributing green beans, roma beans and dragon tongue beans for a few weeks now. They can all be used in any green bean recipe and all be frozen as described above, If you find yourself tiring of them do take the effort to blanche and freeze, its easy and you’ll appreciate them later. Happy eating. Claudia
Tags: basil, beets, carrots, cilantro, dill, dragon tongue beans, green beans, parsley, peppers, roma beans, scallion, summer onion
