by Annetta Cook[10]
The growing season brings an abundance of fruits and vegetables freshly harvested from your garden. The unmatchable sweetness of peas cooked fresh from the pods, the tender-crisp texture of fresh broccoli, the delectable flavor of sweet juicy strawberries are irresistible. It is always a disappointment when the growing season is over. You may have more produce than you were able to use within a short time, so why not savor its just-picked freshness during the autumn and winter months—freeze it!
Of all the methods of home food preservation, freezing is one of the simplest and least time-consuming. The natural colors, fresh flavors, and nutritive value of most fruits and vegetables are maintained well by freezing. However, to freeze foods successfully—that is, to preserve their quality—produce must be carefully selected, prepared and packaged, and properly frozen. Be sure to use reliable home-freezing directions such as those found in U.S. Department of Agriculture publications. Unless recommended practices and procedures are observed, the food’s eating quality will be a disappointment.
The first consideration before deciding whether to freeze the garden’s harvest is whether your freezer can maintain temperatures low enough to preserve quality of the food during freezer storage. Storage temperatures must be 0° F (-18° C) or below to help prevent unfavorable changes in the food, including growth of bacteria. The temperature control of your freezer should be adjusted so the warmest spot in the freezer will always be at 0° F or lower. Freezers and most two-door refrigerator-freezer combinations are best suited for long storage of home-frozen fruits and vegetables since they can be set to maintain this temperature.
Proper preparation of produce is also important to insure high eating quality of frozen vegetables and fruits. Vegetables, except green peppers and mature onions, maintain better quality during freezer storage if blanched, or heated briefly, before freezing.
Blanching is necessary to prevent development of off-flavors, discoloration, and toughness in frozen vegetables. Besides stopping or slowing down the action of enzymes responsible for these undesirable changes, blanching also softens the vegetable, making it easier to pack into containers for freezing.
Fruit does not need to be blanched before freezing. However, most fruits require packing in sugar or sirup to prevent undesirable flavor and texture changes in the frozen product. Sugar, either alone or as part of the sirup, plus the acidity of fruit retards enzyme activity in fruit stored at 0° F or below.
Packaging Material
Material selected for packaging fruits and vegetables for freezing must be moisture-vapor-proof or moisture-vapor-resistant to keep the food from drying out and from absorbing odors from other foods in the freezer. Loss of moisture from the food causes small white areas called “freezer burn” to develop. These areas are not harmful, but if extensive they can cause the food to become tough and lose flavor.
Suitable packaging materials include rigid plastic food containers, plastic freezer bags, heavy aluminum foil, freezer paper or plastic film, glass freezer jars, and waxed freezer cartons. Collapsible, cardboard freezer boxes are frequently used as an outer covering for plastic bags to protect them against tearing.