Aren't they beautiful! Nice, crisp, green beans.
This is my third picking off the plants, my second one for this week. I am not up to canning beans, the pressure cooker freaks me out. But I blanch the beans and freeze them up.
First, I pinch off the ends and snap them into bite-sized pieces. A great project to do while watching television, since it doesn't take much brain power. Once that is done, I heat up some water on the stove.
Once the water is up to a rolling boil, I spoon in a few cups of beans, let them boil for a brief amount of time (a minute or two). Make sure you have an ice bath set up to put the hot beans in to shock them to stop the cooking process. After the beans have briefly cooked, put them into the ice bath and swish it around. The ice will need to be refreshed after a while as it will melt.
While the cooked beans are cooling, put some more beans into the boiling water to keep that process going. Once the beans are chilled from the ice water, I strain them and put them on a cookie sheet to freeze. Keep up the process until all the beans are done.
I place the cookie sheet in the freezer and let them set up for 12 to 24 hours. Once they are frozen solid, into a freezer bag. Don't wait too long to move 'em to the freezer bag or they will get freezer burnt (this affects the flavor and makes them mushy...you can still use freezer burnt veggies in soups if it bothers you).
Out of the batch I did earlier this week, I ended up with two quart bags of beans. I should get the same amount from this batch as well.
Happy harvesting!
Thanks a bunch Wendi now I don't have to look it up. My sister has given me beans twice now and I've been eating them in salad and such I don't like really them cooked but everyone else seem to.
ReplyDeleteOn Tuesday I will be cooking some up with bacon pieces and a bit of onion. But now I can freeze some too.