Freezing Asparagus

I am planning on doing a lot more food preserving to save money and enjoy foods at their freshest when they are not in season.  In keeping with that, I decided to preserve asparagus in the tastiest way possible: by freezing them.  If I have to eat non-fresh veggies, I prefer them frozen, rather than canned, especially asparagus.  (Unless they are pickled!)  Anyways, I brought an extra twenty dollars to the farmer's market and bought eight bunches of asparagus.  Follow these super easy steps to freeze your own!

Here are those bunches of beautiful asparagus.  My family eats two bunches at dinner, so that is how I will prepare and freeze them.

If I'm making asparagus for dinner, I usually just snap off the tough ends of their stalks.  But, since I was working with such a larger quantity, the quicker way to do this was to simply cut off about an inch off the bottom.  To make it a neater process, keep them banded together while cutting.  Afterwards, you can take the bands off and rinse them.  Save those tough ends to make broth,or chop them small and add to a soup!

Bring a large pot of water to a rolling boil.  Carefully put the asparagus in and leave in, or blanch, for about one minute.  It's okay if you somehow forget and the time creeps up to two minutes, but try not to leave them in beyond that.  You don't want mushy, boiled asparagus.  The water will inevitably stop boiling when you put the asparagus in.  That's okay; do not leave them in waiting for the water to come back to a boil.  Simply start your timer when they go in.  Bring water back to full boil before adding your next batch, however.

Use tongs to remove asparagus from pot and place in colander.  Rinse under cold water for another minute or so to stop the cooking process.  Shake as much excess water through the holes as possible when done.

Place in freezer bags, two bunches at a time, if you are freezing them in the same quantities I am.  Press the air out and seal the bags.  Freeze until you are ready to prepare them for a meal.  Simply thaw and cook as usual.

I hope this was a useful step-by-step program on how to preserve delicious springtime asparagus.  Look for more tips coming up soon!

Final Pumpkin Harvest and Prep

Well, after the children picked their pumpkins that were dedicated to become jack o'lanterns, and after the neighborhood kids picked out theirs, these are the pumpkins that were left in our garden to harvest. Quite a lot, I think, for a home garden. The children's pumpkins were pardoned from the slaughter; they will go to seed back in the garden bed. SR's pumpkin, Penelope, made a showing for this picture: she's the pinkish one in the back right corner. Preparing the pumpkins for the freezer was quite laborious, but now I have plenty of bagged pureed pumpkin for future dishes. Well worth the effort! See below my steps to get them from the wheelbarrow to the freezer.

This is G's wheelbarrow full of different varieties of pumpkins. He cut them all off the vine for me, which is harder than it sounds. They can stubbornly cling to the vine, and the stems of our pumpkins had spiny thorns all over them.

Washed free of loose dirt, waiting for processing. You can see some of those thorny stems I mentioned.

They were hard as rocks, unlike the ones you get at stores or pumpkin patches. So, G suggested I boil them first to soften them, much like a potato. Very ingenious. I fit as many pumpkins as I could in my largest pot and boiled for at least fifteen minutes. Some took twice as long, depending on their size. They were done when I could either stick them with a fork or a sharp knife. Be careful during this step. Use tongs to put them in the water and remove them, by their stems. Turn them over a few times while they boil. When you prick them, they release hot, liquidy bubbles. Set them aside to cool enough, so you can handle them.

This is what a boiled pumpkin looks like inside. Scoop out the guts and seeds and set aside - you can rinse and bake the seeds later. I actually have so many seeds, several cups worth, that I'm still sorting them! Yay!

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Wrap each pumpkin half with foil, just covering the top is fine, or wrapping the whole half is fine, too. Bake for at least an hour. If your pumpkins are soft when you get them, you can skip the boiling step and bake for an hour and half. Remove the foil and set aside for a few minutes to cool. I had all the pumpkins going in different stages: while some were boiling, others were baking. Also, some of my pumpkins were so soft after the boiling step, that they skipped the baking step and went straight into the food processor to get pureed.

Scoop out the flesh from the shell and puree in a food processor until completely smooth. Some pumpkins were still a little firm after baking; it didn't seem to matter their size. For these, I chopped first and added a couple of tablespoons of water to get them moving. Don't add too much because you don't want watery puree. If you feel they are too firm, bake them a little longer. Pretty color, don't you think?

Cool the puree enough , so you can bag it. I scooped out one cup measurements and put them in sandwich bags. I ended up with 23 cups of puree! My garden is my number one way I have saved money on groceries. If you have space for even a small pot, I highly recommend planting something to grow and eat.

Now, on with the pumpkin recipes! You should be seeing these very soon and later, as well. That's what's so nice about freezing and canning: you can have wonderful dishes from fruits and veggies that were harvested at the peak of their season and have kept their rich taste. Have fun!