What’s Going in My Freezer?

I have been very busy freezing whatever I can fresh from the Farmer’s Market for the winter. I seem to have a lot more freezer space than cupboard space, so I decided to forego the canning of the things I can freeze. Here’s just some of what I have so far:

Strawberries, Raspberries and Blueberries

Strawberries, raspberries and blueberries should be fresh, unwashed and checked over for damaged or generally yucky ones. Then they are spread in a single layer on a pan, placed in the freezer until frozen and then put into freezer bags. They can be used frozen or thawed, but need to be rinsed since you didn’t wash them before freezing. I like to keep a bag of blueberries in the freezer, take out a few in the evening, rinse them, put them in my cereal bowl and put the bowl in the fridge overnight. Fresh blueberries are all ready for my cereal in the morning. Or you can thaw them quickly by putting what you want into one of those handy little berry colanders and rinsing with running lukewarm water. Washed and thawed all in one!

ZUCCHINI

In a previous post I talked about how to freeze zucchini, either shredded or in chunks. I’ve got a whole winters worth of zucchini stored away!

Tomatoes

I’ve used what I grew in the garden, then bought lots more (about 30 lbs worth–I got a great deal!) at the Farmer’s Market. I now have many bags of whole cherry tomatoes (not blanched, treated like the berries), chopped and diced tomatoes, tomatoes crushed for sauce, and ready to go sauce. It was like a little factory in my kitchen! I’ll talk more about all that in a later post, but you can see how to generally prepare tomatoes for freezing here.

Green and Red Peppers

I didn’t have much luck with green peppers this year, but they looked great at the Farmer’s Market. I’ve been buying a few at a time for freezing. Like most other vegetables, you need to wash them, look and remove any blemished areas, blanch in boiling water for 2-3 minutes then plunge into ice water to stop any further cooking. I left mine in pretty big chunks so I can use them as needed for a recipe, but in the past I’ve frozen them diced or sliced. I freeze them in a layer on a pan in the freezer and then put into a freezer bag so they don’t freeze as one giant clump together in the bag.

And more…

I also have a few bags of diced and sliced spring onions. I’m thinking about freezing some corn if I can get some really fresh, otherwise it’s no better than the store bags. I bought a head of cabbage today to make some “freezer slaw” from a family recipe from a friend. Can’t wait to try that! So, what’s in your freezer this year?

Fall Spinach

I wasn’t really thinking fall crops with all the 90° days we’ve had lately, but I was at the farmers market and one of my favorite farmers was talking about having just planted their fall spinach. I chatted with him a while about it, which I appreciate since whatever I grow takes away from his sales, and realized that I’d better get my seeds in the ground soon. What I found the most interesting is that even if I don’t get a great harvest now, it will overwinter and I’ll have some very early spring spinach.

I found a great article in Mother Earth News on growing fall spinach. Some of the highlights are that spinach doesn’t germinate well above 75°, and not at all above 85°, it’s not so much the heat that makes it bolt in the spring as much as the length of daytime, and some varieties are better for overwintering than others. Unfortunately for me, I thought about this all too late, so I just planted what I had and I’ll see what happens. It does seem like we’re in for a cool stretch, so maybe I’ll get them to germinate and be healthy plants before the first frost.

Next, I’ll be looking up some of these other varieties that they found to be tastier grown in the fall, the smooth-leaf varieties “Olympia” and “Viroflay”were hits, and the standard savoy varieties, “Bloomsdale Long Standing” and “Tyee” were not as good. There also seemed to be differences in ability to not bolt in warm fall weather, with “Olympia” and “Spinner” fairing the best. I think I’ll be ordering some Olympia seeds next spring!

Next year, required reading will be this Mother Earth News article on planting fall vegetables in general. Late September is not the time to be first thinking about this.

Garden Swag

The other day I decided it was time to get the first of the ripe roma tomatoes packed up for winter. One of my boys came out with me to help, and needless to say he was impressed with the haul we got. So, in teen-age terms, we had some “garden swag”. It was fun watching him search around for the ripe tomatoes, stumble upon a giant zucchini bat, and then realize that there was a whole pile of cucumbers hidden in the vines and tangled in the tomato plants.

I didn’t really have enough roma tomatoes to bother getting my canning equipment out, so I decided to freeze them. It’s really pretty simple and, as with most things, it’s best used for cooking since some of the texture will be lost during the freeze thaw process. I looked around for instructions and settled on some great information from the UNL Extension and fellow blogger, Tomato Dirt.

Here’s what I did…

Pick nice ripe tomatoes that are blemish-free. Wash under running water and trim off the stem end. I also made a small cut in the bottom to help later with peeling. I had decided to freeze them peeled since the skins are just too tough in soups, etc.

To easily peel tomatoes, place the washed, prepared tomatoes into boiling water for about 1 minute. You’ll notice that the peels start to split.

Remove the tomatoes with a slotted spoon.

And plunge immediately into an ice-water bath for about a minute or so. The skins will then pop right off.

Then, you can freeze them whole, or chop coarsely. I chose to chop them. In the process, I also took out many of the seeds, since it’s really the tomato “meat” that I want for winter cooking. I packed the chopped tomatoes into freezer ziplock backs, squeezing as much air out of the bag as I can. If you have a vacuum sealer, that’d be even better. Off to the freezer they go. They’ll be fine to use anytime this winter.

What are canning or freezing this year?

Glowing Tomatoes

The tomatoes are ready for picking in bulk this weekend. I been picking as needed for eating; BLT’s, tomato mozzarella salad, grilled burgers, greek salads, tomatoes au gratin, and the list goes on. Do you have a favorite fresh tomato recipe?
But this weekend, I have the time to harvest them for winter storage. In the meantime, the sun was just perfect a few days ago for a few shots with my new camera, a Canon Powershot G15.

…and what are tomatoes without a little basil?

(BTW, as soon as I finished taking these pictures, I promptly pinched off the basil flower stalk to keep the plant from bolting)

Yellow Cucumbers

While I’ve been getting a nice number of cucumbers this year, some of them have been oddly yellow and quite bland tasting. My first thought is that I left them on the vine too long, but these oddballs started out yellow, and stayed yellow.

I found some interesting ideas as to why this might be happening.

Not enough sun– very possible. I have them growing on a cucumber trellis that shares space with a large zucchini plant. Possibly some of the leaves are casting too many shadows onto the new cucumbers. For a variety of reasons, I think I should separate the squash and cucumber plants next year.
Too much water– less likely since other cucumbers are nice and green on the same vines.
Over-ripe– not likely. They seem to start out yellow and stay yellow.
Cross-pollinating with summer squash–interesting idea. Could be possible since I have squash in the same garden. Zucchini is right next to it and summer squash a few feet away. Not sure how I could tell if this is the case, but it is part of the reason to move the squash to a new, larger space next year.

Carrots

I don’t think there is anything as tasty as a carrot pulled fresh from the garden. The grocery store carrots really can’t hold a candle to them. I’ve tried to grow them in rows in the garden like you’re supposed to, but, like many things I try to grow in nice rows, doesn’t always work. The soil needs to be just perfect for carrots, or they get oddly deformed. Or, some of the row will grow and then there’ll be unexplainable gaps in the rows. Just not reliable in my garden.

Carrot Grow Bag from Gardeners Supply Company

A few years ago, I came across growing bags from Gardener’s Supply Store. They used to have carrot specific bags that I bought two of, in a very carroty orange color, but they’ve since discontinued those. Since those are unavailable, I would recommend the Universal Grow bags as a good replacement (that luckily still come in that wonderful orange color, among others) for either carrots or peppers. I have some of those now, too.

To use these bags, I fill them with Miracle Gro Potting Soil. I prefer that to regular garden soil since it won’t get too compacted in the bag and holds water a bit better. It does start with fertilizer, but I will add some Miracle Gro fertilizer through the year, and again in the beginning of the next year. Before placing in bag, be sure to wet the soil and keep it moist, but not soaked, until the seeds germinate. Gardeners Supply Company has a good, thorough, description of how to grow carrots in their grow bags here.

I’m not always conventional in the way I grow things. I’m sure I throw way too many seeds in at the beginning of the year, much closer than is recommended on the packages. But I still get lots of tasty carrots!! As it gets closer to harvesting time, which is usually 60-70 days, I try to look for the ones growing a bit too close together and “thin” them by starting the picking season picking every other one or so. Usually it’s recommended to thin early on, but this way I get more carrots over a longer season. At the beginning of the picking season I get pretty little, but very tasty carrots. Later on, I get bigger ones that have more room to grow. I get a nice long carrot season in a very small space!

The bags also have the advantage that if I don’t like where it’s located, I can just pick it up and move it to another spot. I’ve had mine for at least 4 years and they’ve held up amazingly well for something that feels like a very strong felt.

Looking for ones to pick and "thin" out the growing carrots. Look for ones growing too close together and remove a couple. — Looking for ones to pick and “thin” out the growing carrots. Look for ones growing too close together and remove a couple.

One of my boys gave it a "Wow, that tastes good" — One of my boys gave it a “Wow, that tastes good”

While they make a pretty display and look more home grown to have all the greens left on, if I’m storing in the refrigerator I will cut off most of the greens. They seem to stay fresher that way. Enjoy!

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August Tomatoes

My tomatoes have really enjoyed the weather this summer. They’ve grown like gangbusters and starting to produce some beautiful red fruit. I planted four varieties this year:

All have lots of green and red fruit on them. The first Romas have not been very juicy, I think they needed to ripen on the vine a little more. The Better Boy has a shorter maturity time than Big Boy, and it’s had quite a few nice sized ones already. Big Boy is just getting started. The cherry tomatoes are really sweet this year, and from the looks of it, I will have a “million” as advertised. Unfortunately for me, my daughter, who is the biggest cherry tomato fan in the family, just moved into her own apartment. She’ll be bringing home bags of tomatoes when she comes to visit!

Todays picks are gong to make the perfect BLT’s for tonight’s dinner.

And before you think all is perfect, sometimes things go wrong and you get rotted fruit on the vine. Best to pick and throw away asap, they’ll soon be covered with house flies and fruit flies and just get generally gross.

Does anyone else get a rash and itch terribly after touching tomato vines? I know I need to come right in and wash my arms as soon as I’m finished. Sometimes after weeding I get the same problem. I really need to start wearing long sleeves.

You can find more information on the tomatoes I’m growing on this previous blog post page.

Whoops-Giant Zucchini

I go on vacation for a week, then got busy and forgot to check the status of the vegetable garden. Not a good idea this time of the year. I have HUGE zucchinis and summer squash. They are the size of kiddie baseball bats and each weigh about 4 lbs. This is not good!

When squash get this big, they get tough and develop very big seeds. I’ve tried to cook them before and they just don’t work well for summer recipes. Especially the summer squash. Letting them get this big also saps the plant from any desire to make new squash since it’s real purpose is to produce seeds. And those big ones are just full of them, making the plant content to just continue make them even bigger.

So what to do?????

After some exploring on the web, I decided all was not lost. Looks like my best bets are zucchini bread and freezing for soups and winter dishes. So, my kitchen has been a flurry of baking and cutting trying to use these monsters up. I’ve never made zucchini bread, so again explored the web and came up with what I hoped was two delicious sounding recipes from Fine Cooking and Real Simple. First, I made Chocolate-Nut Zucchini bread from Fine Cooking with a couple of changes. First, I decided that 3/4 lbs of zucchini was about 3 cups shredded, I used whole chocolate chips instead of the bittersweet chocolate and vanilla yogurt instead of plain because that’s what I had on hand, and I then I just simply forgot to put the nuts in.

Because of the very big seeds and pithy center, I cut the zucchini in half and scooped out the center with a spoon before I grated it. The skin didn’t seem too tough, so I left that on. If you can’t scratch it with your fingernail, it was suggested that it should be peeled then.

This recipe got thumbs up from the family, so I will be making another loaf (or 2) for freezing.

Next, I made Zucchini Spice Bread from Real Simple. I like the method of getting some of the water wrung out of the grated zucchini from the previous days’ recipe so I did that again here. Briefly, put the grated zucchini into a colander, sprinkle with 1-2 Tbsp sugar to draw out some of the liquid, let sit for 15-20 minutes. Then hand squeeze the water out before putting into the bread batter. The only change I made to this recipe was that I added 1/2 cup of chopped walnuts.

Again, thumbs up! Two good recipes. If you have another you like, I have plenty more zucchini to make into bread.

Lastly, I cut up another zucchini for freezing.

I again scooped out the pithy, seedy center, then it cut into about 1 inch chunks.
I then blanched them in boiling water for about 3-4 minutes, followed by plunging them into an ice bath to stop the cooking process. I just want to blanche the chunks, not cook.
Then drained in a colander for a few minutes and packed them in 2 cup portions in freezer bags.

Ready for use this winter in some kind of soup or stews. Does anyone have any favorites? Hopefully now I will be able to pick some nice tender ones to use in my favorite summer side dish and salad recipes.

By the way, I did toss the one giant summer squash. It was just not salvageable. That’s where a composter would come in handy.

Cucumbers-Mid summer

My cucumbers, which looked so wimpy when I planted the seedlings, have grown great. I grew Burpee Sweet Burpless Hybrid for no other reason than the description sounded good in the catalogue. I do seem to have a lot more squash plants than cucumber, and unfortunately, I like cukes better than squash. Oh well, I guess I’ll be needing some creative squash recipes.

In any case, the cucumber and squash plants are co-existing nicely on my large cucumber trellises from Gardeners Supply Company.

Cucumber plants naturally are climbers and use tendrils to attach themselves to anything it can–the trellis, the brick wall, the tomato plant next to it.

The nice thing about using a trellis is that the cucumbers hang off the back, are easy to find, and don’t lay in the dirt where they can potentially get rotten spots.

When they are ready to harvest, it’s a good idea to hold onto the spot the cucumber attaches to the plant while pulling it off. It’ll be pretty stuck on the vine and I’ve pulled whole sections of the plant (with other immature cucumbers) with the ripe vegetable when I’ve tried to pick them. Also, if this is your first time growing cucumbers, don’t be surprised that the cucumber is covered in little spines. When I get them in the house, I just use the kitchen scrubber sponge and rub them off and you then have the normal smooth cucumber you’ll find in the store. Enjoy them in your favorite cucumber salad recipe!

One of my favorite cucumber recipes is a Sweet and Sour Cucumber Salad. This is an easy recipe that can be made with thinly sliced or chopped cucumbers and makes a great side-dish for almost any summer dinner. It can easily be jazzed up with tomatoes, green peppers, kohlrabi- whatever is available in your garden that day.

Start with your favorite cucumber and either slice it thinly, spiralize it or dice it. All make for a tasty salad. For making wafer thin slices, I love my Kyocera ceramic slicer. But be careful where you store it, it is REALLY sharp.

Sweet and Sour Cucumber Salad

Author: Stephi Gardens

Delicious, fresh cucumber salad

Ingredients

½ c Rice Wine Vinegar (unsalted)
⅔ c water
3 T sugar
3 cucumbers, sliced, diced or spiralized
optional: ½ medium thinly sliced medium red onion

Instructions

Bring vinegar and water to a boil in a saucepan over medium heat. Stir in sugar to dissolve and simmer 15 min, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat and let cool to room temperature.
Pour over prepared cucumbers in a bowl, toss to coat, chill in refrigerator until ready to serve.
Extra dressing can be refrigerated and used within a week.

Farmer’s Market

We are lucky to have a fabulous Farmers Market to our town every Monday, June-October. The fruit and produce changes every week, so you never know what you might find. But, you are guaranteed that it will be super fresh and in season. It’s a great way to supplement the harvest from my own garden (which so far has yielded some lettuce, spinach, radish, and recently a cucumber and a squash). This year, they’ve added a couple of fresh bread vendors and some specialty items like olives and olive oil, tea, an old time knife sharpener, organic meat and more. In June, they had some of the best tasting Michigan strawberries that I’ve had in a long time. I bought a bunch and made some very tasty jam. I try to remember to go every week.

I find there are a lot of vegetables I don’t know what to do with, so I’ve started asking the vendors for their recommendations. Kohlrabi is one of those things (the big white turnip looking thing in the right hand corner). They were passing out samples last year of freshly sliced kohlrabi and it quickly became a favorite. Cut up on it’s own, or as a tasty crunchy item in a salad, it’s delicious. It’s season is short, and I can’t always find it in the grocery store. So that’s something I’ll be getting for sure the next couple of weeks. I’m looking for other ways to cook it, too. Any suggestions?

Hope you can find a farmer’s market nearby you.

Category: Vegetables