Freezing your Harvest

There are many ways to preserve your harvest.  Lately I've been using my freezer and dehydrator more and more.  We now get enough produce that we definitely need more ways to preserve our produce than just canning.  This post has a few tips for freezing, but I'll post on dehydrating soon--promise.

When deciding how to preserve produce, consider the following:

• What will my family eat?
• What is needed in my food storage?
• How much work and time is involved?

After considering these questions, it made sense for us to freeze peaches, blackberries, raspberries and peppers.  All of these are very quick and easy to prepare for freezing--big bonus.  Plus, we already have plenty of canned peaches and various freezer jams to last throughout the year. 

Berries are so simple.  First wash them and make sure the excess water has drained through the colander.  Then spread on a jelly roll pan and place in freezer.  If you don't drain the excess water well, the berries will freeze in little pools of water and make it difficult to remove from pan.  Once the berries are frozen (after several hours or overnight), place frozen berries in freezer bag.  Freezing them first on a jelly roll pan keeps them as individual berries and not one solid blob of frozen berries.  That allows you to be able to use as many or as few as you need each time.

 

When freezing peaches, wash, remove pits, remove any bad spots and quarter.  As with the berries, place on jelly roll pans until frozen before placing in freezer bags.  It is also a good idea to label and date your freezer bags for anything you put in your freezer.

Since we use our frozen berries and peaches for making smoothies throughout the year, I do not remove the skins.  Once the peaches have been through my Blendtec blender, the skins are not even noticeable and the book that came with my blender says removing the skins is unnecessary.  Does anyone know if this is the case for all blenders?  I'm sure it would also be true for Vitamix blenders, but wondered about the average blender.  Not removing the skins is sure a huge time-saver. 

Using the frozen fruit for smoothies works wonderfully.  The flavor tastes fresh and no ice cubes need to be added to the smoothies.  I wonder if all blenders are capable of blending peaches straight from the freezer.  Anyone have experience or insight with that?  I would hate for someone to try this only to wind up with a broken blender.

Now on to peppers!  This year was a bumper pepper crop for us.  We had more than we needed for eating fresh and making salsa, so freezing was an easy way to preserve the excess.  I cut the bell peppers into strips after the seeds were removed so they would be ready for fajitas.  Again it is important to freeze them on a jelly roll pan before putting in a freezer bag so they freeze individually.  I can now pull out as many peppers as I need each time I make fajitas.  They obviously can be used for other things, but I know our family will probably eat them all in fajitas.

Our Banana Peppers were also prolific this year.  Banana Peppers or Hungarian Wax Peppers (whichever plants we happen to find for that year) are mild peppers that we love to cook with our zucchini and summer squash.  They can be substituted for recipes that call for a can of diced green chilies or any recipe that would benefit from peppers, such as enchiladas or soups. To prepare for freezing, just chop in a food processor.  I did not include the seeds because we like the more mild flavor.  Put the chopped peppers into ice cube trays and freeze.  The chopped pepper freezes together into little pepper cubes.  Pop the frozen pepper cubes out and put into a freezer bag.  For my peppers, each pepper cube equaled a little less than one pepper.

 

Zucchini (mostly in bread form) is another one I fill my freezer with.  I also can't forget the freezer jam since that is almost a daily staple with as many school lunches as we pack each week.  Freezers really are an easy way to enjoy your produce all year!

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Please share if you have other ideas for freezing your harvest or if you have answers to our burning blender questions!  What do you freeze?

Zucchini, Zucchini and More Zucchini

I visited my daughter bearing gifts: summer squash from my garden. 

“What should I do with them?” she asked.

“Whatever you would do with zucchini,” I said.

“All right, we’ll give them to our neighbor.”

(Reader’s Digest, August 2011)

I like this joke even though I usually have no trouble using all the summer squash and zucchini from our garden.  Believe it or not, the thing I look forward to most from our garden each year is the zucchini and summer squash.  I love to fry them with onion, peppers (Hungarian Wax or Banana Peppers), seasoned salt, black pepper, and a very small amount of butter or olive oil.  I especially love it when I fry it long enough that it starts to caramelize.   Frying this long usually means the zucchini and summer squash pieces start to fall apart which doesn’t look as pretty, although we think it is worth it for the extra flavor.  It is still yummy and looks a lot more appetizing if you fry it just until they are tender.  Unless the zucchini or summer squash is a little large, I do not peel or take out the seeds.  All my kids even eat it!

My kids’ favorite though is zucchini bread.  We eat a lot of zucchini bread during zucchini season, but we also eat it year-round.  Zucchini bread freezes great.  Last year I put 30 loaves in my freezer and we just ate the last loaf about two weeks before we were able to start making new ones.  We like zucchini bread for snacks or in school lunches. 

You can also freeze the shredded zucchini for making fresh loaves later.  This takes up a lot less space in your freezer if that is an issue.  I like to freeze my shredded zucchini with each freezer bag containing the measured amount for my recipe.   When it is thawed, the squash will be a softer texture with visible liquid.  Leave the liquid in and the baked product will not be affected by it.  The only problem with freezing the shredded zucchini is that I often have zucchini still in my freezer the next summer, while we always eat all of the loaves. 

Here is my mom’s recipe.  In my opinion, it is the best zucchini bread recipe!

Zucchini (or Summer Squash) Bread

Beat together:

3 eggs

1 c. oil

2 c. sugar

Add and mix:

2 c. raw zucchini or summer squash, grated.

3 c. flour

1 tsp. salt

3 tsp. cinnamon

¼ tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. vanilla

chopped nuts, optional

Bake 325 degrees for 45-60 minutes in 2 greased loaf pans.

• If you have a Bosch Universal Plus mixer, you can make 3 times the recipe.  It will be quite full, but works just fine.  Getting six loaves made with one mess is great!
• My oven bakes hot, so I bake mine at 300 degrees.  You may also have to adjust according to your oven and type of bread pans.  You’ll know it is done when a toothpick comes out clean or mostly clean.  It is best moist, so you won’t want to over bake.
• Depending on the size of your loaf pans, you may get more or less loaves per batch.  The pans I use are 9.25x5.25x2.75”.  If you use smaller pans, you’ll need to decrease the baking time.
• You do not need to peel the zucchini or summer squash, but I usually do.  It is just more aesthetically appetizing. 
• If the seeds in your zucchini or summer squash are big, you will want to scrape out the seeds before shredding.  Otherwise, you’ll have little hard pieces in your bread.
• Be sure to add the zucchini before adding the flour.  The zucchini provides the necessary moisture to wet the dry ingredients.  Otherwise, it will be next to impossible to get everything mixed even after the zucchini has been added.  (Trust me on this one.  I will never make that mistake again!)

My sister-in-law made some zucchini bars.  They were so yummy and I didn’t even realize until she told me that she had just used this same recipe.  She baked them as bars instead of loaves and then frosted them with a cream cheese frosting.  For the bars, bake once the above recipe (two loaves worth) in a greased jelly roll pan.  It will take about 30 minutes, but again just bake until they pass the toothpick test.  For the cream cheese frosting, my family can't quite agree on whether 1 or 1 1/2 times the below recipe is the right amount of frosting.  I think I'll probably stick with 1 1/2 times the recipe and those that like less frosting can scrape a little off.

Cream Cheese Frosting
Mix.

1 cube butter (softened to room temperature)

3 oz. cream cheese (softened to room temperature)
2 T. milk
1 tsp. vanilla

powdered sugar (enough for desired consistency)

Our zucchini and summer squash plants are doing really well this year, so I need some variety in how I use it.  How do you use your zucchini and summer squash? 

Please leave a comment and share your zucchini and summer squash recipes and tips with all of us!