Freezing Dill

Fresh dill freezes beautifully and easily and the end product is of great quality. I like to keep some in my freezer all winter if I can. Some people like to freeze it in ice cube trays covered with water or olive oil; this works fine but I find that for dill it's not necessary and I can just pack it loosely in freezer bags. This technique also works great for parsley. (For basil and cilantro, I suggest the ice tray method.)

1. Start with good fresh dill. Weed out any shriveled or yellow bits.

2. Chop the dill leaves and tender stems pretty finely.

3. Pack into freezer bags. Don't stuff them. You want to fill smallish bags loosely, with the dill fairly flat and spread out. This is key to being able to shake some out or break off a bit when you want to cook with it.

Fresh Tomatoes for Sauce

This is not so much a recipe as an advance preparation technique. You can use this for nearly any type of tomato (I don't recommend it for cherry or grape tomatoes unless they're quite large, just because the work involved doesn't seem worth it), including the juiciest slicers, and end up with a product that's good for making sauce without hours and hours of simmering down. You can do this in a small batch for a single dinner or in large quantities to freeze.

Blanched and seeded, ready to drain in the colander

Start by coring your tomatoes and cutting out any bad spots.

Bring a large pot of water to a boil.  While you wait for it to boil, prepare a large bowl of ice water nearby.

Carefully drop the tomatoes into the pot of boiling water to blanch them for peeling - as many as will comfortably fit.  After 1 minute, scoop them out with a slotted spoon and place them into the ice water. After a couple minutes, scoop them out of the ice water. Repeat with as many batches as you have.

Peel your blanched tomatoes. The skin should slip right off.

Once peeled, slice each tomato open. If you're using paste tomatoes, you can just scoop out the seeds and place seeded tomatoes in a colander over the sink or a large bowl.  If you're using slices or the like, break them into a few pieces and squeeze carefully in your hand - do this over a bowl! You want all the seeds and much of the excess liquid to go into the bowl below while holding onto the tomato flesh. Once you're satisfied with the amount of seeds and liquid squeezed out, toss the flesh into the colander.

Let the seeded and squeezed tomatoes sit in the colander for a bit, shaking or stirring them a few times to encourage excess liquid to drain off.  Once this is done, the tomatoes are ready to use or freeze. (I free them in quart freezer bags, about 3 cups per bag, pressed out kind of flat for tidy storage and faster thawing. You can thaw them in warm water.)

Roasted Tomatoes for the Freezer

There are lots of ways to freeze tomatoes. Every year I experiment a little, seeking the magical nexus between up-front effort and quality of the end product. This one is a bit more up-front work, but I'm very optimistic about the end result.

Like all tomato freezing and canning, this will yield the best results with paste tomatoes rather than the much juicier slicers or the too-fussy-to-handle cherry tomatoes.  (Both of those work well in salsa or dried.)

I have come to the conclusion that it is best to peel the tomatoes, despite the extra work involve (it's not that bad) - frozen tomato skins end up tough and they inevitably peel off the chunks of tomato and float around in whatever you've cooked with them.  Not a huge deal, but better to peel them before freezing.

Before peeling the tomatoes, core them and cut out any bad spots.  This is far easier to do before blanching than after.

To peel tomatoes easily, bring a Dutch oven or other large pot of water to a boil. Have a large bowl of ice water ready nearby. Dunk the tomatoes for about 1 minute each in the boiling water, then lift them out with a slotted spoon and place in the bowl of ice water.  (This is called blanching.)  Remove from ice water, and you'll find that the skins slip right off.

Blanched tomatoes ready to peel

 Peel off the skins, squeeze out the seeds and excess liquid, and place the tomatoes in a roasting pan.  Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper, then roast at 400 degrees for 30 minutes.  Remove from the oven and let them cool.  

Roasted tomatoes ready to drain and package

Scoop cooled tomatoes out with a slotted spoon or dump them into a colander to remove more liquid.  When ready, scoop them into freezer bags. I like to use quart bags, freezing about 3 cups of tomatoes per bag - that seems to be about the right amount for most recipes I use them in.  Squeeze excess air out of the bags, then press the tomatoes out flat - they will store more compactly and thaw more quickly this way.

When you are ready to use these tomatoes, thaw them in a bowl of warm water until you can get them out of the bag.

Freezing Raspberries

Our raspberry plants are pumping out a good crop right now.  In the heat, they are ripening faster than we can use them.  Because raspberries don't keep well once picked, even in the fridge, your best bet is to freeze them if you have more than you can use in about 24 hours.

To freeze, pick over the berries and remove any moldy ones, or, if possible, slice off the moldy bit. Spread the berries out in a baking pan and freeze for several hours (this is called tray freezing). Once the berries are frozen hard, you can pack them into freezer bags and they won't stick together.

Raspberries ready for tray freezing

Freezing Sour Cherries

Got the first local cherries of the season at this morning's farmers market.  Ben Clark of Clarkdale Fruit Farms told me that they would have sour cherries for probably two more weeks, and also about two weeks of sweet cherries, starting next week.  You have to get there early - they sell out!  Sour cherries (aka tart cherries or pie cherries) can be eaten fresh but really where they shine is in pie and preserves.  So each year I try to get some into the freezer so we can have our cherry pie at Thanksgiving, plus a few other times if at all possible.

To freeze cherries, just wash, stem, and pit.  Drain off an excess juice, then pack them into freezer bags (1 quart size is good).

An inexpensive cherry pitter is very helpful for the job.  I picked one up a few years ago and have been grateful for it each year since. Pit cherries in a nice deep bowl, as they tend to spatter and the dark ones stain.

Plan on two quarts of fresh cherries yielding around 1 1/4 - 1 1/2 quarts of pitted cherries, well packed - just about the right amount for a pie.

Roasted Eggplant Puree with Olive Oil

Toward the end of eggplant season I decided to experiment with pureeing and freezing it.  I didn't post the recipe then because I wanted to see how good the results were.  Straight cooked eggplant freezes terribly - the resulting texture is awful - but I had heard that eggplant puree produced better results.  It's true!  This is definitely good enough to be worth doing.

Whole eggplants
Olive oil
Salt and pepper (optional)

Start by roasting whole eggplants in a 500 degree oven (on baking sheets) or on the grill.  Roast until the outside is fairly well blackened and the eggplant is nice and soft all over.  Let them cool until you can handle them comfortably, then slice them open and scoop out the flesh.  Puree the flesh in a food processor, adding a generous quantity of olive oil, until very smooth and silky in texture.  Add salt and pepper to taste if desired.

To freeze, scoop desired quantities into freezer bags (I froze in 1 cup amounts).  Spread out flat and freeze.

To thaw, place the bag in a bowl of warm water for 10 minutes or so.

Fire Roasted Chili Peppers

We always grow one or two chili pepper plants in our garden each year, and often end up with more peppers than I can use fresh.  Some years I have made salsa, and hot peppers can also be frozen whole or sliced in half and seeded (just like sweet peppers).  This year I wanted to try something different, so I fire roasted a bunch for a result that is smoky and a little sweet as well as spicy.  I plan to use them in pots of chili, beans and rice, etc. through the winter.  The technique is much like the technique for fire roasting sweet peppers (which I also recommend doing now that sweet peppers are fully in season).

You can use green or red chili peppers; the ripe ones will be a bit sweeter.  If you have a mix of colors, I suggest keeping them them separate for strictly aesthetic reasons.  I strongly suggest wearing gloves (regular rubber gloves are fine) while handling the chilies, especially when you are ready to peel them.

If you are using large chili peppers, you can cut them in half lengthwise and seed them before grilling.  Otherwise, you put the whole peppers directly on the grill.

Get your grill going nice and hot.  Lay the chili peppers out across the grate and grill, turning as needed, until the skin is blistered and they are black all over.  Do not be shy about this, because the skin is very hard to remove if not fully blackened.  However, keep and eye on the chilies because you also don't want to char them so fully that you burn the flesh under the skin.

When the chilies are fully blackened, remove them from the grill and set them in a bowl with something covering it (they will steam a little, which also helps loosen the skins) until they are cool enough to handle.  Wearing gloves and using a paring knife, slice the top (stem part) off each chili and run the knife around the inside of it to remove as much of the seeds as possible.  Then peel or scrape off the blackened skins.  The chilies will get slippery as you peel them, so handle with care.

Once you have your peeled chilies, you can use them as is (probably mince first) and store them in the fridge.  You can also puree them.  I opted to puree and then tray freeze little dollops, stored in freezer bag for use in small quantities.

Roasted Corn

This is delicious on its own as a side dish, but it also makes a wonderful addition to many recipes in which you might want to use corn. Roasting enhances the flavor and brings out notes you don't get from a simple steaming or boiling. Particularly good added to soup, chili, etc. I roasted up a big batch this weekend and froze it in one-meal quantities to add to dishes through the winter.

12 ears corn
2-3 Tbsp olive oil
Salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Slice all the kernels off the corn. Toss them with olive oil and salt and pepper, place them in a large baking dish, then roast for 20-30 minutes, stirring once or twice.

Variations: Add dried or fresh herbs to the corn. Basil or sage would be particularly good choices.

Blanch and No-Blanch: A Quick Guide for Freezing

Some vegetables require a quick blanching before you freeze them in order to preserve their color and flavor, while others can go straight into the freezer. Here's a quick guide on what falls into which category.

No-Blanch:
Tomatoes
Peppers (sweet and hot)
Zucchini/summer squash
Onion (chopped)
Fennel (chopped)
Parsley, cilantro, dill, chives
Blueberries
Cherries
Strawberries
Peaches
Rhubarb (pack in sugar)
Raspberries, blackberries
Currants, gooseberries

Blanch:
Green beans
Peas (shell, snow, or snap)
Corn
Carrots
Leafy greens (alternatively, saute)
Celeriac
Turnips

Cook first:
Winter squash, pumpkin
Sweet potatoes

Don't freeze:
Eggplant (unless it's in a dish like ratatouille)
Potatatoes

It's Blueberry Season

(Among many other things, of course!) The Benson Place in Heath is taking orders and scheduling pick-ups right now, so get in touch with them quick if you want a box of blueberries and you haven't yet. If you have any freezer space to spare at all, blueberries are wonderful to put up. Super easy to freeze and great in many uses through the winter: waffles, pancakes, cobblers, crisps, pies, smoothies, popsicles... My husband loves a sprinkling of frozen low bush blueberries (the small ones) over a bowl of Snow's Ginger ice cream.

Here's a past post on how to freeze them.

Freezing Cherries

Clarkdale Fruit Farms has been at the Greenfield Farmers Market the last two Saturdays with both tart and sweet cherries for sale. They thought they would have some more tomorrow as well, but it will most likely be the last of the them. Get there early if you want some!

Tart cherries are fantastic for pie. If you don't want to bake in the heat, freeze some now to make pie in the fall. You'll need around 2 quarts of cherries for a pie.

To freeze cherries:
1. Pit the cherries. You can do this with a sharp knife and/or your fingers, but if you're going to do very many I suggest you pick up a cherry pitter. I have an inexpensive handheld one that pits one cherry at a time; they also come in version that pit several at a time. Make sure you do your pitting over the sink or in a large bowl, as the juice splatters and stains.

2. Drain off extra juice in a colander (down the drain, or else drink it; there won't be a ton).

3. Pack the cherries gently into quart size freezer bags. Distribute the cherries so they form a somewhat flat package. Label and freeze.

You can bake the cherries without thawing, just allow a little more time in the oven. A little gentle massaging of the frozen package should loosen them up fairly well, and they can be further separated in a bowl.

Strawberries, Strawberries, Strawberries

It's mid-June and that means it's the height of strawberry season. This morning we went over to Upinngil Farm and picked about 19 pounds. My husband and son picked another 9 pounds or so earlier this week. At the moment I've got strawberries in the freezer, strawberries in the dehydrator, and strawberries and rhubarb simmering on the stove to make jam. Mmmm.

To freeze whole strawberries, wash them well, then hull them and cut out any bad spots. If you have time, freeze them on trays for several hours, then package them in freezer bags (I use quart size). Otherwise, just put them straight into bags and freeze. The advantage of tray freezing is that it keeps them separate so you can take out just a few at a time instead of having to thaw the whole package. If you just put them straight into bags they will stick together.

I use a home dehydrator to dry strawberries, as I do for tomatoes, peaches, apples, and pears. Wash and hull the berries, then slice in half and arrange them on the trays. Dry until there is no moisture left in them; they will be somewhere between leathery and crisp. Store in an airtight container. They'll keep even longer if you store them in the freezer. I like to stir them into my oatmeal in the winter.

Strawberry season is short, especially the u-pick season, so if you haven't gotten out there yet, you should do it in the next week or you'll risk missing out.

It's April - What's Left?

I put up quite a lot of food last summer and fall - frozen fruits and vegetables, canned tomatoes, canned jam, and lots of canned salsa. We also had squash, shallots, sweet potatoes, onions, potatoes, and carrots, mostly from our late fall CSA, and bought some more storage crop items at Winter Fare in early February. So what's left now that it's April and the farmers market is due to open in a week and half?

In a nutshell, not much. It seems we did pretty well at putting up enough to use without having a ton leftover when the season starts up again. I have one package of corn, a couple of green beans, and a couple of chopped tomatoes in the freezer, along with some more pesto. I've got a few packets of strawberries that I'm saving for the first rhubarb, some peaches that I'm saving for smoothies and popsicles as the weather warms up, and a LOT of blueberries left. That might be the one are where we were overly ambitious, having put up about 30 lbs of them. But I also know we'll start using a lot in smoothies and popsicles as the weather warms up and before they are in season again.

In the pantry, I've got one last quart jar of tomatoes, a couple half pints of salsa verde, and a little jam. We have some shallots left, though I recently had to toss some in the compost because they were crumbling inside. And that's it.

I wish I had done a little more corn and some more red pepper, but we did alright with what we had. Next year I'll definitely stock up on more red peppers in the early fall, in order to make more romesco sauce.

Cooking from the Freezer

It's gotten remarkably easy to come by local winter foods all through the cold months here in the Pioneer Valley, and there's really quite a variety available - but even so, I still sometimes get tired of root vegetables and greens. This is where the freezer comes to the rescue (not to mention that a full freezer means less grocery shopping and there's always something to cook!). If you followed this blog through the summer and fall, you know that I froze a lot of different vegetables, some from our garden (like the bumper crop of green beans) and some from local farms (corn, tomatoes, extra peppers). The key for me is to have some variety and make sure that most of what I freeze can be used for lots of different types of dishes.

In the past week I've made a couple vegetable-heavy dishes straight from my freezer stocks: chili with beef from our share, black beans I had cooked and frozen previously, tomatoes, corn, and red peppers; and last night fried rice with edamame, red peppers, corn, and green beans from the freezer. So easy, so delicious!

If you're interested in learning more about freezing food, come check out my workshop at Greenfield Winter Fare on Saturday, Feb. 5 (time TBD - I'll post it when I know).

Simple Squash Soup with Ginger

Okay, it's October, I can start to think about cooking winter vegetables. I know winter squashes have been in the farmers markets for weeks, but with all the tomatoes and eggplants and so forth still so abundant, and with summer such a recent memory, I can just never bring myself to cook squash in September.

A farmer friend gave us a bunch of small butternuts that couldn't be sold. Most had their stems broken off and wouldn't keep. So I put the whole lot in the oven last night. Some went into this soup and the rest is in the fridge, destined for the freezer. I haven't quite decided whether to package it all in quarts for soup or in 1 cup bags for baking. Maybe some of each.

1 Tbsp canola oil
2 medium onions, sliced
4-6 cloves garlic, minced
1-2 Tbsp grated ginger root
6 cups cooked butternut squash (or similar smooth-fleshed squash)
Water (or use stock if you like)
Salt and pepper

Heat the oil in a soup pot. Add the onions and saute over medium heat until soft, 5 minutes or so. Add the garlic and ginger and saute another 2-3 minutes. Add the squash and some water. Remove from heat and puree, either with an immersion blender or in batches in a blender or food processor (in the latter case, return to the pot when done). Add additional water if needed to achieve the desired thickness. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Serves 4-6.

Another Change in the Weather

Well, after posting last week about the sudden turn to cool weather and the seeming end of summer, I guess I was asking for it - it's been in the 90s all week and I'm roasting in my attic office. On the upside, the heat-loving veggies in the garden are having a delightful resurgence. Suddenly there are several eggplants ready, a burst of beans, and fast ripening tomatoes. The heat wave does seem likely to be short-lived, though, probably over by the weekend with a turn to more seasonable September weather.

In the meantime, I have several pounds of tomatoes and green beans that need to be dealt with in the next two days, before we go on vacation. With time being tight, I'll probably just freeze them all whole.

Peaches - Freezing, Drying, and Canning Jam

Saturday afternoon I picked up two pecks of peaches (that's about 16 quarts) from Clarkdale - where they are selling "orchard run" peaches for $25 for two pecks (or $15 for one). Orchard run fruit has been picked but not separated into first and second quality - generally a good deal for putting up. The quality of the two pecks I bought was great; all the peaches were ripe and most were in very good shape. I spent the rest of the weekend drying, freezing, baking, and making jam.

Freezing Peaches
Cut peaches in half and remove pits. Slice each half into four to six pieces. For best results, tray freeze the slices before packaging: arrange on trays, individual pieces separate from each other, and freeze for 6-8 hours. Then package in freezer bags (I do 1 lb of frozen slices per quart bag). If you don't have the time or patience to tray freeze, it's also ok to just dump all the slices into freezer bags and freeze that way. They will stick together in a giant clump, but if you plan to thaw before using, that's not a huge problem.

Drying Peaches
To dry peaches in a dehydrator, cut them in half and remove the pits. No need to peel unless desired. Then slice about 1/4-inch thick - a mandoline is great for this but a knife works, too. Instead of wedges, cut pieces of even thickness from the inside of a half to the outside. Spread slices on the dehydrator trays and dry for 9-12 hours. Check after 9 hours and remove any pieces that are completely dry; rotate the trays as well. Check every hour after 9 hours and remote dry pieces.

Using a mandoline to slice peaches into the dehydrator

Jam
Here's my recipe for Ginger Peach Jam. You can make this with fresh or frozen peaches. Skip the lemon juice if you like. You can also substitute ground ginger for the fresh.

Freezing Green Beans

Like almost everything else in the garden this year, the pole beans are producing in abundance. I have frozen about 7 pounds so far and there are more coming along.

Green beans (or purple or gold...) are great to have in the freezer in the winter. They freeze well and can be added easily to a variety of dishes or steamed to eat straight. The freezing method is as follows:

Stem the beans and, if desired, cut or snap them into 1 to 2-inch lengths. Wash if needed. Blanch briefly (I find steaming in a large pot is the easiest way to do this but you can also use boiling water), then dunk or rinse in cold water to stop them from cooking further. Shake off the water as best you can, then package the beans in freezer bags, squeezing out all the air. I usually pack about 1/2 lb per quart bag - this is a good amount for adding them to stir fries or casseroles and if I need more I can just thaw multiple bags.

Freezing Blueberries

Blueberry season is approaching its end, so if you haven't stocked up on blueberries yet, now is the time!

We just picked up a 20lb box of low bush blueberries from The Benson Place in Heath and packaged them all for the freezer. (If you're wondering, 20 pounds of blueberries makes about 13 very full quart freezer bags.) Low bush blueberries are smaller and milder in flavor than their high bush cousins. They are very good for baking, particularly for muffins, pancakes, etc.

We also just picked up a 12-pint flat of high bush blueberries from one of the farms along River Road in Whately (alas, I don't know which one - my husband just stopped in on a whim and got the berries as he went by). We'll freeze most of these, too - with stronger flavor, they're great for smoothies and fruity desserts like pies and cobblers.

Freezing blueberries is super easy. If they're clean, just package them as is in freezer bags. If you need to wash them first, let them dry a bit before packaging. They don't stick together much, so you can fill a bag completely and then just remove whatever amount you need as you go along.

Another Way to Freeze Tomatoes

Each year I keep experimenting with freezing tomatoes, trying to find the best balance between effort and usability of the final product. Canning, of course, produces a result that is very high quality with very easy usability - but it's quite a lot of work up front. Freezing is quicker up front no matter how you do it, and it's also easier to do in small quantities - for example if you have just a couple pounds of tomatoes that will go bad if you don't do something with them.

So here's another method: This will work best for paste tomatoes (juicier ones will be too watery on thawing). Core and seed the tomatoes, then chop or dice. If you want a very finely chopped product, you could even do this with a few pulses in a food processor. Then package the tomatoes in quantities of 1-2 cups in quart freezer bags. Squeeze out the air, then spread the tomatoes out flat in a thin layer. Stack the bags in the freezer. Then, when you want to toss some chopped tomatoes into something you're cooking, you can thaw a bagful in a bowl of warm water in 10 minutes or so.