Fruits and vegetables, what can I freeze?

ora_43

Tue, Feb 16 2010, 7:18 am

I got a lot more fruits and vegetables than I was planning to this morning (Israelis, fyi there are great sales at Mr. Zol this week). In particular, I have a lot of tomatoes, bell peppers, citrus, banana, and carrots. I also have some kohlrabi, squash, zucchini, and carrots.

What can I freeze, and how? (how - freeze it fresh? freeze after cooking? etc).

Mimisinger

Tue, Feb 16 2010, 7:52 am

vegetables cook them all and then freeze.

a nice ratatouille -

Banana you can freeze fresh, but they will only be usable for babies or banana bread afterwards.

Marion

Tue, Feb 16 2010, 8:09 am

You can freeze it all. I usually chop everything to usable sizes (like for stir fry) and freeze accordingly.

Citrus doesn't freeze so well, but it also takes a LONG time to go bad!

Mrs Bissli

Tue, Feb 16 2010, 8:45 am

Vegetables: chopped fried onions, grated sauteed carrots, cream of XYZ vegetable soup (esp carrots, butternut squash), ratatouille, cook tomato into tomato sauce, briefly blanched spinach, cooked broccoli and cauliflower, sauteed chopped or sliced mushrooms. You can also make mixed chopped veggies (onion, carrots, celery, red peppers, courgettes), sautee them and freeze. Good for soup, casserole, making into cottage pies or quiche, or mixing into rice or pasta. Cucumbers, fennels, lettuce do not freeze well.

Fruits: Bananas, berries, pineapple chunks, mango chunks. Makes great smoothies. Cooked apples and pears (apple sauce, compote), make into jams (figs, berries). You can freeze fresh cranberries as they are. Agree I won't freeze citrus--gets too soggy when you defrost. Though you can freeze individual segemtns of satsumas which you can pop like an icecandy. You can do the same with individual seedless grapes. Also melons and kiwi get soggy when you defrost. Sharon fruits turn brownish/bitter.

mominisrael2

Tue, Feb 16 2010, 12:15 pm

Sometimes when I have a whole bunch of different colored peppers I'll cut them into strips and sautee 'em with some chopped onions, divide into small ziplock bags and freeze. Great to add to scrambled eggs or homemade pizza.