It began by my daily walkabout in the garden, just checking things out but not planning on doing any heavy duty work, best laid plans. I bent down to check on what I thought was a beautiful and large green bean, I was right, and next to that another, and another, and another. This is usually glorious news, except that I was hosting 8 out of town guests that included 6 children in addition to my own 5 children and the guests were here for an extended stay, who has time for canning with all that going on?
I do know enough about gardening to know that I would waste a lot of food if I didn't do something though, so I began picking, and picking, and picking. When it was all said and done I had filled 2 of these 5 gallon buckets of fresh picked and beautiful green beans, that was almost 30 lbs worth when I weighed it all out.
I do know enough about gardening to know that I would waste a lot of food if I didn't do something though, so I began picking, and picking, and picking. When it was all said and done I had filled 2 of these 5 gallon buckets of fresh picked and beautiful green beans, that was almost 30 lbs worth when I weighed it all out.
What's a girl to do? I put the kids to work snapping and snapping. (child labor at its finest!)
Once the beans were all snapped I certainly did not have room in the fridge for them, I mean like I said, 8 out of town guests added to our brood of 7 is 15 people and cooking for that many leaves little to no refrigerator space! I decided that the fastest and easiest way to proceed was to blanch the beans (kills any bacteria) and freeze them in quart bags (pints are just too small for us!).
So how does one do this feat? It is literally so simple. I prefer my canned beans, but when in a pinch I don't want to loose fresh produce so freezing will work and will usually last without incident in a deep freeze (not your regular freezer) for 6-9 months without a problem.
When snapping beans you simply snap off the end where the bean grew to the plant, you can snap the tail off too but it is not necessary. Then snap the bean into bite sized pieces, usually 3-4 per bean.
Once all of your beans are snapped you need to blanch them. This is a process that kills bacteria and stops the food enzymes from further deteriorating food. Blanching is a simple process where you boil the beans for 3 minutes an then plunge them into a sink full of ice water to stop the cooking process. The beans will turn the most brilliant shade of jade green you have ever seen and they are VERY tasty at this point. You now have beans ready to be safely and tastily stored in your deep freeze.
So how does one do this feat? It is literally so simple. I prefer my canned beans, but when in a pinch I don't want to loose fresh produce so freezing will work and will usually last without incident in a deep freeze (not your regular freezer) for 6-9 months without a problem.
When snapping beans you simply snap off the end where the bean grew to the plant, you can snap the tail off too but it is not necessary. Then snap the bean into bite sized pieces, usually 3-4 per bean.
Once all of your beans are snapped you need to blanch them. This is a process that kills bacteria and stops the food enzymes from further deteriorating food. Blanching is a simple process where you boil the beans for 3 minutes an then plunge them into a sink full of ice water to stop the cooking process. The beans will turn the most brilliant shade of jade green you have ever seen and they are VERY tasty at this point. You now have beans ready to be safely and tastily stored in your deep freeze.
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Be sure to use freezer bags, yes they are more expensive but they are thicker and well worth using to avoid freezer burn on your well preserved harvest!
Aren't they beautiful? That's 18 quarts of green beans to have this winter, yum!
