free food at the farm
So the CSA we joined this summer has ended, but the farmer emailed the list to say that any summer subscribers could come by the farm for gleaning on Saturday. Mom and I went, and holy cow! That field is still full of food. Hardly anyone was there, and those who were there took a few handfuls of this and that and left. Not us. Free organic
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No actually, you chop the vegetable up bite size, or however you'll want to serve it later, and drop it in a pot of rapidly boiling water. Boil briefly -- just long enough for, say, green beans to take on that bright green color, maybe a minute or two -- and then immediately remove it from the boiling water and drop it in an ice water bath. The ice water bath is the "shocking" part of the procedure. The boiling deactivates the enzymes that would otherwise cause your vegetable to turn to slimy mush in the freezer, and shocking in an ice water bath stops the cooking while the vegetable is still crisp and brightly colored, so you can cook it more later after thawing if you want. Then put it in a freezer bag, squeeze out the air, label and seal and fling in the freezer. Briefly boiling and then shocking is also a nice way to prepare vegetables you plan to eat immediately, as in a cold vegetable platter. It takes the raw bitter taste out of broccoli, for example, while still leaving the broccoli crisp. It's a way of cooking that leaves vegetables halfway between raw and cooked, often a popular preparation method with picky kids (and adults).
And yes, we have a big freezer in the basement. :-)
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Cool, thanks for the tutorial. I might try it sometime! :) Granted, I'm usually the only one who eats vegetables, but I still might try it.
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