Freezer 3/4 full

So I have been slow to report on my latest step in preparing for winter--freezing! Sadly, I have no pictures of my efforts from the last two weekends. Right after I canned the tomatoes, I took a big step forward in my endeavor to preserve food for the winter--I bought a stand-alone freezer. Until this point, I had been freezing stuff in the 'fridge freezer. I had told myself when I filled that freezer, I could permit myself to buy the stand-alone freezer. The problem is that we live in an apartment with no basement or garage or laundry room where I could hide this freezer. And the only spot in the kitchen where was room was next to the radiator... So after some debate, we decided on placing it in a corner of the dining room. Considering that the walls are white and the freezer is white, it doesn't look too bad. The sound of it running makes me think of the sound our family's VCR made when it was taping a show. Random, I know. 

Anyway, I didn't really mean to talk about the freezer, I wanted to talk about all of the yummy things that are in my freezer. The most prevalent items are bell peppers and blueberries, because they are SO EASY! 

When I was at the farmers' market buying my bushel of peppers (about 25-30 peppers), the couple next to me talked about how they just throw the peppers in whole and cut them when they use them. I thought this was wonderful news--I didn't have to clean and cut 30 peppers! We though that they would take up more space, as compared with cutting the peppers and putting them in boxes, so I did both, to compare. I was able to fit 3 sliced peppers in one of my freezer boxes. Two of these boxes weren't much smaller than a freezer bag with 6 peppers whole, so I am glad I decided to do a mix of both. 

Blueberries are even easier--I dumped them into the freezer box straight from the farmers' market basket, and then put the boxes straight into the freezer. No washing, no sorting. Apparently washing them before you freeze makes the skins tougher. I just wash them to thaw them when they come out of the freezer.  Most of the blueberries I froze are wild blueberries. They taste much different that the cultivated blueberries I had growing up in Indiana. The wild blueberries are more expensive, but they are worth it for their intense sweetness! 

I have also blanched and froze the kernels from 20 ears of corn (these ears are giant so I got more than a cup of corn from each ear) making for 22 cups of corn. When I moved to Quebec, I was happy to discover that the sweet corn here was just as yummy as that of Indiana. There is also broccoli, swiss chard, green beans, and zucchini (grated for cakes and breads) in the freezer, but none in any huge quantity, because they take more time to do and I haven't had much time. 

I also roasted some veggies and put them in the freezer, but that is for another day!! I hope this post wasn't too boring--I wanted to get an inventory out there before I forgot it all. I did make a list, but already I am not really understanding my notes on my list...

Thirty pounds of tomatoes

This weekend I had my first big adventure with this whole endeavor to eat locally--I canned tomatoes. Thirty pounds of them. An entire bushel. I am still pretty impressed myself, that I actually did it, and didn't chicken out somewhere in the process. I kinda felt like a huge nerd doing it. But as MK said, my lack of local friends is bringing out my Martha Stewart skills. 

I started by heading to Marché Jean-Talon with my very handy trolley (such a good investment). It looked like I had picked the right time to buy my tomatoes--they were everywhere! In strolling the aisles, I discovered herbicide-free tomatoes! I have no idea if they used insecticides, but at least there was one less chemical to contend with. I loaded my cart with the bushel of tomatoes for only $18. 

Once I was back home, I learned just how many tomatoes a bushel makes! My kitchen was full of them. And I had to begin the process of skinning, chopping, cooking, and canning all of these tomatoes. Thankfully, I had the National Center for Home Food Preservation to help me along with clear instructions on preparing the crushed tomatoes and then canning them. While washing the tomatoes, I made a little X with my knife in the bottom of each tomato.  This helped them split more easily when they were in the boiling water--I found that they didn't split well on their own. The skinning part was easy--and actually kind of fun. I didn't so much enjoy quartering the tomatoes, because it seemed to take FOR-EV-ER. The cooking part didn't take very much time--about 10 min. Then into the jars they went. With my first batch, I didn't have a canning funnel, which meant tomatoes went everywhere. I definitely recommend a canning funnel (it has a wide, short mouth at the bottom). I don't have a canning pot, but I do have a 10 L pot from Ikea that held just enough water to cover the pint jars that I used. The rattling of the jars on the bottom of the pan was a bit annoying, but not annoying enough to run out and buy a canning pot. 

So my Saturday's efforts left me with 16 pint jars (500 ml) of tomatoes. I am quite pleased. I use a lot of canned tomatoes in the winter, so I don't know how far these will take me, but at least I will be purchasing far fewer cans of tomatoes this winter. $18 worth of tomatoes left me with 16 pints of fresh, locally grown tomatoes--I think that is a steal!