I have recently started purchasing a Bountiful Basket of beautiful produce every other week from a Produce Coop here in my town., thanks to the tip from some great friends of mine! The food coop currently has three pick-up locations on their website in my town, and are located ALL over the US! Here's their
website if you're interested in checking them out yourself! You have to be quick about ordering each week (every other Monday at 12 PM), because they have a limited number of baskets available at each pick-up location and they disappear quickly! I have purchased two separate baskets in the past month and have been extremely happy with all produce included. It's generally 50% vegetables and 50% fruit and it only costs $15/basket, plus a $1.50 handling fee and a one time $3.00 charge for your basket to be held at the location each week you order. Here are the photos of the past two orders of produce we received, as well as the step-by-step of how I prolonged the life of some of the fresh greens we received.
My first week I received a lot of great produce that would make some delicious FRESH salsa!
I chopped up my green peppers, some carrots, all of my baby tomatoes, some fresh greens, and added in some cilantro, lime juice, salt and honey and ta-da - FRESH SALSA!
My second week of produce had an over abundance of fresh Broccoli that I didn't want to let go to waste! So I decided to do some research on how to Freeze my fresh greens! I was pleasantly surprised at how easy the steps were and decided to give it a try with my fresh broccoli and green peppers we received! All fresh greens you desire to preserve must be blanched ahead of time to prolong their life. When the water in food freezes, it stops much of the cellular activity that normally causes spoiling. But there are certain enzymes in vegetables that can continue their nefarious deeds in the quiet and dark of the freezer. Blanching — either steaming or boiling the food briefly — destroys the enzymes that cause the loss of nutritional value and flavor. Onions, peppers, and herbs do not need to be blanched. Squash, sweet potatoes, and pumpkin should be fully cooked before freezing. All other vegetables should be blanched.
Here are the supplies I used that you will need if attempting to preserve the life of your greens:
Knife and cutting board to chop up all of your veggies to be blanched
Large Pot to blanche the vegetables in
Large Strainer
Clean sink
Ice Cubes
Thick FREEZER bags
Vaccum sealer (or I used my Ziploc Freezer bags with Vaccum seal hole included and sucked the air out using my Ziploc Vaccum sealer)
Freezer space to store your freshly blanced vegetables in!
STEP ONE: Boil the water and add fresh greens (Broccoli, green peppers, collard greens, etc.). Depending on the item you will have to boil them for approximately 3-5 minutes total.
STEP TWO: Remove the fresh greens from the boiling water with a slotted spoon and place in a clean sink full of COLD water! In order to cool them more efficiently I added ice cubes to the water. You only leave them in the chilled water for as much time as you boiled them for (usually 3-5 minutes total).
STEP THREE: Remove the vegetables from the chilled water and strain them thoroughly to prepare them for the freezing process.
STEP FOUR: Properly label your bag with contents and date, then place the set amount of freshly blanched greens in the freezer bag, seal the bag and remove as MUCH air as you possibly can! This helps to prevent freezer burn and allows them to be frozen for a longer period of time as well. *If you don't have a vaccum sealer, you can seal up all but the very far corner on one side and place a straw inside, then suck out as much of the air as you possibly can before removing the straw and sealing the final portion of the ziploc.
This is the photo of my Ziploc Vaccum seal bags and Ziploc Vaccum sealer (found in the baggie/foil aisle at most stores).
I'm repeating the steps now for my fresh green peppers. I read that I only needed to blanch my green peppers if I was going to use them to cook inside of foods, otherwise if you're just going to put them on top of salads and you want to leave them crunchy, there's no need to blanche them.
Here I am quickly cooling down the green peppers
This is just a better shot of the Ziploc vaccum seal bags and vacuum sealer machine (it takes batteries) and I LOVE it! It works tremendously and for us it was a much more frugal price that we could handle!
So there you have it, if you're looking to blanch your vegetables I just provided a step-by-step process of how I went about doing so with my fresh greens! I'm looking forward to cooking up my broccoli and green peppers in a dish in the near future!
