Food Anyone doing any preserving/freezing for winter?

Neeya

Neeya

O.G.
Jan 2, 2007
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1,606
#1
I just got back from a long trip to the Farmer's Market with the first big batch of baby yellow squash and zucchini, green beans, sweet small carrots, blackberries, peaches, peppers, cucumbers, green onions, and arugala. I'm not a huge fan of canning anything other than preserves/fruit (except for tomatoes!), as I like my veggies super-fresh as possible, so I blanched most of them and finally have them bagged and frozen. The cucumbers I puree and put into ice cube trays because I love cucumber water, and cucumber ice cubes are a great solution! The arugala I made into arugala pesto and froze into a thin block that I could break pieces off of for pasta. Blackberries and peaches were frozen and then bagged for winter treats! I'm living season to season now on what is grown locally, so this was a necessary move for me.

Is anyone else doing any preserving/freezing at the moment? What are you saving? :tup: How are you doing it?

Next up I'll be gathering potatoes, onions, garlic, and winter squash, towards fall. SO and I are thinking about digging out own root cellar of sorts, to keep the root veggies in! Our neighbors will think we're crazy, lol. I think I'll puree a bit of winter squash (for soup) and save the rest whole. Apples will come in September, I'll save some plain and try to dry another batch of slices to freeze. My Dad and I are going to be boiling peanuts for a while (my fave food, hehe). Soon I'll begin cooking and canning tomato sauces out of the heirloom's we grown this year, so I can have yummy sauce for pasta during winter! But that will have to wait until I'm out of classes...so time consuming :Push: Next week I need to go back and stock up on more of what I've already frozen. It sounded time consuming at first, but it's actually proving to be quite fun! :yes: So much to do though, but I'm loving it!! :tup:
 
#2
It's fun, only if my freezer is big enough lol. I'd like to try it, but it's just impossible for now. The only thing I've frozen is basil pesto. I do it a little different though - I use a tablespoon to scoop them into ice cube trays, take them out and put them in a box, so that I know it's 1tbsp per piece.

I SOOOOO want to make everything from scratch, but SO refuses to let me do it. He said if I spend anymore time in the kitchen, he won't eat anything that I make anymore. He thinks cooking is hard work, no matter how many times I've explained to him that it's fun for me.
 
#3
mcmug17 said:
It's fun, only if my freezer is big enough lol. I'd like to try it, but it's just impossible for now. The only thing I've frozen is basil pesto. I do it a little different though - I use a tablespoon to scoop them into ice cube trays, take them out and put them in a box, so that I know it's 1tbsp per piece.

I SOOOOO want to make everything from scratch, but SO refuses to let me do it. He said if I spend anymore time in the kitchen, he won't eat anything that I make anymore. He thinks cooking is hard work, no matter how many times I've explained to him that it's fun for me.
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That's funny, lol, my SO is calling me The Pilgrim right now because he thinks everything I'm doing is completely unnecessary and way too difficult! He doesn't get that it's really fun for me either! At the same time, I try to explain that what I'm doing prevents several scenarios: 1, avoiding mad rushes to the grocery store to pick up missing ingredients, and 2, spending less money in the long run by being unable to say that there is "nothing in the fridge/freezer" to eat and then splurging on numerous restaurant visits, not to mention fast food, which has now been completely cut out of our diets.
 
#4
I am! I have already canned two cases of kosher dill pickles and also a couple cases of jams. I am waiting for my tomatoes to be ready so I can either make spaghetti sauce or italian style stewed tomatoes.
 
#5
A family member cans TONS and TONS of tomatoes! It drives me crazy since she never uses them and now she has this little collection of about 400 cans of canned tomatoes in her "canning closet". She always says that she's waiting for when "the weather gets real bad" to use them. :roflmfao:
 
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