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Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Spring Greens

This is a good time of year. The garden greens are in lush abundance--snap peas, spinach, chard and beet greens. Larry picked a 5-gallon bucket of them so after work I set about freezing them.

The first peas--just about enough for a snack, but a precursor of things to come.
Beet greens! A sinkful of them...


...but when steamed for a minute or so, they only fill a few baggies.

We ended up with 10 half-pint baggies of greens. Each baggie is a serving each for us. I'd like to have about 40 baggies in the freezer. I mixed the beet greens, spinach and chard tonight.


To freeze greens:

Pick, wash and clean them. Keep the best for freezing.

Boil water--I used about 4 cups in the clam cooker. I put the greens in the strainer basket and after the water boiled, I put the basket into the pot.

After about 30 seconds I stirred to be sure all the greens were getting steamed. After one minute, I took the pot off the burner, removed the strainer basket of greens and rinsed them under cold water.

Then I bagged them up and put all the small baggies into one large freezer bag and put them in the freezer. They're ready to use whenever I want.

As for the peas? We'll eat them raw and look forward to picking many more.

There is nothing like Spring gardens. We have lettuce, onions, radishes and greens now, with other veggies coming along quickly. Planting early has rewards that are worth the risks (like frost) and the work.



5 comments:

  1. City Girl here.... The only steamed greens we usually eat would be spinach. How do you prepare and serve your variety of greens?

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  2. Just like spinach, DGranna. Beet greens are very mild. Swiss chard is a little more tart to my taste but not much. I will use these frozen greens to make omelets, in soups or just as a dinner vegetable. Honestly, though, of all cooked greens I like beet greens best. I do not like mustard greens, and collards only if cooked the good southern way--and then is small amounts!

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  3. Aw, man! There ain't nothing better in the world than fresh peas.

    Connie, spittin' mad she didn't plant peas

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  4. Those peas and greens look yummy! I'm amazed the peas made it to the house. I'd have eaten them before I hit the door.

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  5. I expect quite a few did just that, Cathy! Larry brought them to me and I ate a few--I'm sure he did the same. They are so, so good. I like to pack them in snack bags and take them in my lunch.

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