Friday, September 2, 2011

What to do with all these Green Beans?

57 pounds of green beans is nothing to shake a stick at. Green beans are taking over my life. So what to do with them all? We grew them here at Seven Cats Farm with the anticipation of selling them, however it seems that this year, that will not be the case. So, we have given some away to both friends and in sample baskets to local restaurants. I've cooked and cooked and cooked with them. In addition, we are preserving them for us to eat over the winter.

We've canned beans in the past. We did it again this year as well. You have to be really careful with you can them (they MUST be pressure canned) as beans are one of the easiest items that can be contaminated with botulism. But we like the taste of our own beans, canned.

This year we are also freezing them. Who knew freezing was so much easier than canning! Here's what we do:

First we sort them - the thinner, younger beans will be frozen, the older ones are for canning.

Then we snap the ends off (The Lovey cuts off the ends. Leave it to an engineer to need a nice, clean end) and then they get thrown in the sink for a good wash.

I cut mine into two inch (or so) lengths, and then they get put into a pot of boiling water for three minutes.


Then off to the ice bath they go!


After that, they are layered into a pan (I make many layers in one pan separated by foil) and put them in the freezer. That way they freeze, but they are not frozen together into one big blob.


After they are frozen, we measure them out and put them in bags and then back into the freezer they go, ready to be cooked up throughout the year until next August rolls around and we do it all over again!

1 comment:

Rachel Marie said...

OOOh I did not think about layering them to pre-freeze! Clever!