Get freezing before you get freezing!!!

Hello everyone!!

Now is the time. We only have a few weeks left for some of the local veggies an BC fruits, so right now is the time to get produce in your freezer for the winter months.


Here is your point form how to guide for freezing what you should!

Beans-only a few weeks left in the season!
-Wash beans well, snap off stem end.
-Get a pot of water boiling
-Dump beans into the boiling water (make sure that you have enough water to stay hot after the beans get dumped in)
-Set timer for 2 minutes
-After 2 minutes remove beans from hot water, rinse in cold water to stop the cooking process.
-Let beans dry, bag in freezer bags, and pop in the freezer for your winter use!

Peaches, Apples, Nectarines, Pears
Erin's Lazy method
I use my frozen fruit to cook with or to make smoothies with, so don't mind having browned fruit.
-Wash fruit
-Cut into slices
-Place in freezer bags and freeze

If you care about appearances more than I do, you may want to blanch(plunge in boiling water) your peaches to remove the skins before freezing, and/or brush with lemon juice to prevent browning. I'm too lazy for this step.

DILL
The best way to freeze baby dill for winter use. This method also works fabulously for basil.
-Wash your bag or bunch of baby dill
-Pop the whole bunch in the blender (be sure to remove any elastic bands!!)
-Add just enough water to allow the dill to blend into a slurry
-Blend up your dill
-Pour blended dill into ice cube trays.
-Pop out your ice cube dill, place cubes in freezer bags to use throughout the winter!!!

Tomatoes
Right now the BC field tomatoes are fabulous. There is a huge crop shortage for our own local MB tomatoes thus the BC imports.
I love to make pasta sauce in the winter time, and the easiest way to do this is with frozen tomatoes.
-To freeze your tomatoes simply...
-Put ripe tomatoes in a bag,
-put bag in freezer.
Seriously, I don't even wash them.
Then when you would like to use tomatoes in the winter time, you just need to
-take out a rock hard frozen tomato.
-Run it under warm water at the kitchen sink.
-Slip the skin off.
-Let it sit in a colander in your sink as it thaws. As the frozen tomatoes thaw, they also shed a lot of their water, meaning less cooking time to get a nice thick sauce!!


We will be open this fall until Saturday October 2nd. BUT! If the weather is great, we still have stuff to sell, and we still have our fabulous customers coming by the shop, we may be tempted to stay open until Saturday October 9th!! How exciting.

Take care, eat good food, and have an excellent long weekend!
Erin