Bringing in the Harvest {Freezing Broccoli}

The last few weeks we have been busy with putting stuff up for winter. Making salsa, canning tomatoes, making pesto and canning applesauce and more have been done to ready us for the next few months.

  I am excited to have all of this done even though sometimes I grow weary in the process. The job is not over yet either. We still have stuff in our garden and we are still working.

  I am very blessed to have parents that taught me how to get stuff ready for the winter (You should see their freezers!) but I know that isn't the case with everybody so I thought it might be helpful to share how the putting up is done.

 I am going to try to share as many as possible of the things we do in simple step by step instructions. Today we will start with broccoli but stay tuned for more later!

This year I actually forgot to plant broccoli but as usual my parents grew a lot and as they do so very often they shared with us. The 5 gallon bucket they sent over actually had a mixture of cauliflower and broccoli. They can be done the exact same way so I just mixed them together.

 Step 1. Clean your broccoli. Wash it well in cold water and if you desire you can soak it in salt water a while too. Broccoli is often plagued by worms and so you do want to watch carefully for them. Though if you miss one or two you will just get some added protein. :-)

Step 2. Cut up your broccoli into the size pieces you want.

 Step 3. Dump it into boiling water and blanch it for 3 minutes. (Blanch is just a term used for quickly cooking veggies like this.)

Step 4. Take it out. I use a big slotted spoon or you can use some other sort of strainer.

 Step 5. Place it in a bowl full of cold water (you might like to add ice) to get it cool quickly.

Step 6. Drain it and place it in containers or bags, label it and but it in the freezer.



We use a lot of recycled containers.



 Step 7. I highly recommend some cheerful helpers!

(by the way, sorry for my photos that are tipped the wrong angle. Every so often blogger decides they need to be turned and I can't seem to correct that.)

Broccoli is very easy to put up, though of course it takes time, and it is very nice to pull out later to use. We love eating it with cheese on top. That has been a favorite for several of my kids (Currently Megan really loves it).

For those of you that have done broccoli too, is this how you do it? Do you have any more tips? I would love to hear your thoughts too. If any one has questions feel free to ask and I will try to answer.

I am linking this to Frugal Friday.