I’m beginning to fear going to work, or going to visit my parents. They live right next door, so avoiding them is rather difficult, but every time I go to the farm, I find a big box of produce outside my car when I leave. I suppose this is a good thing, but when I have to figure out what to do with the never ending supply of fruit and vegetables, sometimes I wish I could just stay home. Last week I found a box of plums along with a box of oversized zucchini and a bunch of beans. Monday I finally dealt with the beans. I have a confession to make, I am obsessed with my vacuum sealer. All summer long I have been vacuum sealing anything and everything. I will write another post on that another day. For now, I’ll stick to the beans. After canning and freezing a ton of beans already this year, my mom finally refused to let my dad bring any more home, which is why I have been blessed with his gift. I did two big batches, one last week and one this week. Here’s what I did:
1. I borrowed a pot from my mom, that I think is made for blanching. It has a nifty basket that goes in it.
2. I cut the ends off the beans, and since some were a good 8 inches long, I cut them into more manageable pieces. I’m sure I was probably supposed to wash them before I did that, but I figured they were getting dumped in boiling water, so they would get sterilized that way.
3. I dumped them in boiling hot water, which is called blanching. (it helps them last longer, kills the bad stuff, and makes them turn a pretty bright green color.) I set the timer for 2 minutes.
4. When the timer went off, I pulled out the basket, let it drain, and dumped the beans into a bowl of ice water. I stirred them around and let the set for a few minutes until they were cool.
5. I put them in a plastic container and put them in the freezer. (I freeze everything before I vacuum seal it. My sealer doesn’t like to do anything that has moisture in it, so I find it’s easier to freeze it first. Plus if it’s anything with liquid it it, I can shape it into a nice square shape that stacks better in the freezer.)
6. After the beans were frozen, I put them into vacuum sealer bags and sealed them up. (I recently found pint size vacuum sealer bags. They are my new favorite. My husband doesn’t like most vegetables, so I like to make individual size servings.)
Sorry I don’t have any pictures of the beans. I didn’t think about taking any.
