To be able to all the vegetables from the freezers it’s wise to use a strict procedure for the process of freezing. Do not freeze soft vegetables like kale, spinach, chard, palm cabbage. They all grow all winter long. No need to freeze them.

Before putting the to be frozen stuff in, do not forget the label, with ingredients and date.

Why blanch?

We have listed a few reasons why you should try blanching right away.

• To retain colour and texture. Your vegetables will stay nice and crispy and al dente, and those beans, broccoli or green cabbage will stay beautifully green when you put them on your plate.
• To retain nutrients. When vegetables are cooked, vitamins and minerals can be lost. A shame, right? The shorter you cook your vegetables; the more nutrients are retained.
• And finally: blanching to freeze food. Vegetables and fruit contain enzymes that ensure that they have a shorter shelf life. When they are blanched, these enzymes are broken down. The vitamins and minerals are preserved, and vegetables and fruit stay fresh longer in the freezer. This is also the reason that homemade/fresh pasta is blanched. Freeze it!

How do you blanch?

• Bring a pan of water to the boil
• Make sure the vegetables (or possibly the fruit) are cut and prepare a bowl of ice-cold water.
• Put the veggies in a colander.
• The colander with vegetables can now be placed in the boiling water. Make sure that all the vegetables are submerged in the water and do not put the lid on the pan. The water must remain boiling.

• Right after the blanching make sure you dip the colander with veggies in cold water.
• Prepare some baking dishes or serving trays with dry and clean kitchen towels
• Leave the veggies for quite a while (could even be overnight) to dry.
• When dry,  put them in zip bags in the freezer, write veggies and date on the bag.

What time you need to blanche?

• Cauliflower: 3 minutes
• Peas: 1,5 minutes
• Sugar snaps (Snap off the stem end of each pod and remove the string that runs along the side of the pod, if necessary): 1,5 minutes
• Green beans: 4 minutes
• Snap beans: 3 minutes
• Broad beans: 2 minutes
• Pointed Cabbage: 3 minutes
• Broccoli: 3 minutes
• Cabbage leaves: 30 seconds
• Brussels sprouts: 3 minutes
• Leek: 2 minutes
• Red Cabbage: 2 minutes
• Carrots: 4 minutes
• Courgette slices or cubes: 2 minutes

No blanch needed, yet freeze

Courgettes

There might be 50 ways to prepare them (and you’ll need them all). Here a few suggestions to prepare and freeze.

• A definite winner is making loads of chocolate courgette cake. You can make them with butter or vegan or without gluten.
• Courgette frittata’s
• Courgette soup
• Veggie sauce

Three-cornered leek

There is an abundance of three-cornered leek or wild garlic in the gardens. The leaves don’t stay that well when freezing them. These two other ways work well in the freezer.

Herb butter. Make corned leek butter or margarine. Picking, rinsing and drying the leaves. Cutting them in small pieces. Stir them into the butter or margarine. Store in old margarine boxes.

Pesto, yeahhh. Make loads and loads, keeps well. Store in zipp bags or old margarine boxes.

Again, many possibilities. The one that worked well is using a good olive oil and pumpkin seeds. Pumpkin seeds give a cheese like flavour. Salt and pepper. You can use garlic in addition, not really needed, it does spice it up a little.

Pesto’s….

So many possibilities here to make different pesto’s. Try with:

• carrot tops
• ground elder
• nettles
• ………
• ………

And combine with different seeds, garlic, olive oil, salt & pepper