from the vine...

...to the freezer

We finally got some of our garden crops into the freezer the other night.  The garden peas and sugar peas have been great for fresh eating but they were starting to pile up on us so time for some processing.  Some of the beans we had frozen last year ended up being too watery and not so tasty because of all the ice crystals that had formed as well as some freezer burn so we decided to try packaging veggies with a vacuum sealer this year.  We bought a Food Saver brand sealer with an assortment of bag options.  It was very easy to use – only one failure that we had to repackage and try again.  That was my fault for trying to stuff too many peas into a bag that wasn’t large enough.  We blanched the peas by placing them in boiling water for 2 minutes, then immediately immersing them into cold water to stop the cooking process.  Next they were dried a bit on a towel and then put right into the freezer bags and sealed – pretty quick and simple.  Hope the vacuum sealing does the job and our peas taste great this winter!