Hibernation: Storing Food 101

With Monty and Atinc out of town this week we had no one to share our CSA goodies with. A full share is waaaay too much food for two people, and as I stared into my fridge I could feel a panic rise. It's Thursday night, I thought, and tomorrow we'll go out to dinner, probably saturday night as well. We could cook a big meal on Sunday but there's no way we're going to use up pounds of potatoes, kohlrabi, hot peppers, cabbage, bags of salad, and all that cruciferous before then!

So I did what I always do when I'm faced with a foodie complication. I called my mom. Without missing a beat she told me to chop up all the broccoli and cauliflower I had (two heads!) into florets and steam it only about half way through. Cool off, and then freeze for soups or sautees in the winter months. That's exactly what I did. I chopped all the veg into florets, steamed for only a few minutes and then immersed into an ice bath. I dried all the florets on a clean dishtowel and then laid them all out on a cookie sheet making sure no piece was touching another. I put the sheet in the freezer and let them do their thing.*

*Note: This is an important step because if you just throw the veg into a bag and toss into the freezer they will freeze into one giant lump - not allowing you to pull pieces as you need them. This is a good trick to remember when freezing fresh corn, berries, or anything that's small in size.

An hour or so later I pulled them out, separated each by food type, and put them in labeled freezer bags with today's date. Now, I just have to contend with that head of cabbage, I may do the same procedure if I don't use it in the next few days.