Freezing Beets & Their Greens

Freezing Beets
is easy peasy, and you end up with "two vegetables" to freeze, as the greens a cinch to freeze too! They make a great spinach substitute.

 I've had some helpful "criticism" lately...where is the "Farmer's Wife"? Well, I'm here still. Since we've stopped commercially farming, I've not considered my readers as interested in the farm, so I've been writing about other things. Your letters are asking about the farm, vegetable recipes, and canning advice. So, today I'll bring you alongside the Farmer's Wife and give you a glimps into my day. Prayerfully you'll be encouraged and possiblly even challenged to try something new. 

"The Lord shall open unto thee His good treasure, the heaven to give the rain unto thy land in His season, and to bless all the work of thine hand: and thou shalt lend unto many nations..."
Deuteronomy 28:12

Spring gardens are now behind me, and I have the summer garden "laid by" as the mountain women used to say. I just planted my second batch of yellow squash, zucchini, and cucumber seedlings. I find succession planting these protects me from the grumblies when my first planting succumbs to the latest blight. My first

plantings do taper off, so these will pick up the slack in about a a month. I'm always thinking ahead.

(As you look at the amounts I grow and the size of my family now, don't think we're gluttens! ha ha! We still supply several families with their weekly vegetables.)

A majority of my days are spent outside in one of the gardens. I still have the canning garden, cottage kitchen garden where I plant the faster growing vegetables like beets, lettuce, peas, cucumbers and green onions in a smaller amount that I can quickly pick for our meals. Then I have a flower and herb gardens. We can't get away from the farming life.

I've harvested my spring beets, planted a few more, and am eager to plant our fall ones come mid August. My children love them as they are like serving candy for supper!

 I froze what we didn't eat or share since we goofed on making our kitchen cabinets too low over the stove. The new microwave that proudly hangs there without taking up counter space (I thought this would be a plus.) is too low for my pressure canners and larger waterbath canner....so before long we'll be moving it! 

These are Detroit Dark Red and  Golden Beets.

Beets are a great vegetable to eat fresh. I grew up with canned beets that were definitely not my favorite vegetable to get when sent to the cellar. These are more like serving candy to my children! They loved them and even ate the leftovers cold for snacks.

Beets are a double win vegetable. You can can/dry/freeze the beet itself and also do the same with the greens. 

Beet Root
 Instant Pot: Manuel 15 minutes with about a cup of water. Fill with beet root up to the full line. Set a timer for about 25 minutes and then I went outside to work on the greens. I kept going back inside to
pour off the steaming hot water carefully and dump the beets into a dish pan/sink of ice cold water. 

Then slip the skin off. Sometimes you'll have to cut a line in your beet to help the skin come off. These came off real simply! :)

Not all my beets were big beauties, but these smaller ones were just as tastey. I remember serving this size to my toddlers as they made for great finger food.

Some beets have "dents" and other imperfections. I know you don't see beets oddly shaped at the market, but these are just fine to eat. I just made a diagonal cut into the beet to cut any imperfection away. 

Next, simply slice the larger beets and lay them in a single layer on a baking sheet covered with parchment if you have it. 

Lay your trays in your freezer until well frozen. I kept mine in here overnight. The next day I pulled the parchement up and slid the beets into half gallon freezer bags. Now I can pull out just what we need for a meal instead of having a big frozen clump.

Beet Greens

I have an "unothredox" method that really saves time when blanching greens. I use two old pillow cases as blanching bags. This saves chasing chopped greens around in your blanching pot. Here I just took thumb tacks/push pins and tacked it down to my garden table. I then set my cutting board  on top of the edge.

 

Since I have two different kinds of beets, my greens will vary in color and texture.

Not all the beet greens are good for eating though. The Detroit Dark greens on the left are deep green. The second one from the left is a healthy Golden Beet top. But you can see the lighter greens and even the bug eaten green to the right were discarded. You can tell the health of your plants by the leaf color and quality...as I worked my greens I discarded any unhealthy ones to the compost bucket.


Chop your greens acrose the leaf, working your way toward the stems. Since I'll be using these greens in recipes that traditionally call for frozen spinach this year, I cut the long stems off and composted them. 

Next, make a  lengthwise cut or two. Then I scraped them into my blanching bag. 

When I had all my greens chopped and in the bags I headed inside to blanch them and finish up the slicing of the beets.

I poured the greens from one bag into a large dishpan and left only enough that would fit with "wiggle room" into my smaller waterbath canner. Using a wooden spoon, I made sure the greens were under the water and separated a bit.

For safety sake, TUCK THE END OF YOUR BLANCHING BAG (PILLOW CASE) INTO THE HANDLE OF THE POT SO IT DOESN'T CATCH ON FIRE.

I set my timer for three minutes. (Yes, I know that you "should" start timing when the water boils again, but I find that it overcooks the vegetables. This timing has worked for years with alllll kinds of vegetables and I still retain the highest level of vitamins.)

Canning/freezing doesn't have to be a big mess. Use the spare moments you have to either continue the process (I was freezing the beets too.) or clean up equipment. (Okay Cerina...IF you are canning/freezing a LARGE amount, plan for it to get MESSY. As you repeat the process OVER AND OVER for your larger family the floor wiiillll get gross. Put old towels on the "path" you take from the stove to the sink to keep things safe. Hint: Ask a friend to come and help as it's better to laugh over the mountains of greens rather than cry...and maybe she'll do the dishes!:)

A peek inside the pot.

When the 3 minute timer goes off, hold the blanching bag up above the boiling water. Let it drip a bit, and then place it on the underneath side of the lid to the pot. This will slow the drips down as you take it to the sink. 

Place the blanching bag into a dishpan/clean sink filled with ice cold water. Swirl the greens with you spoon again allowing them to cool.

I then place the dripping blanching bag into my dish rack to finish dripping. I can actually press on the bag to remove the water QUICKLY from the greens. Then I put the next batch in with the other bag. While that bag blanches, I can bag these!

Looking at these pictures now a couple of weeks later, I see I really had spinach greens on my mind! I labeled the bags that way!

Get as much air out of the bags as possible...no you don't NEED a vacuume sealer. It may be better, but you don't have to spend a lot to put up a harvest. Remember those folks selling all the latest (now the freeze driers) are making their living that way and are selling you  something. (One of my favorite bloggers is really having fun with her freeze drier and is pushing them. But SHE DIDN'T SPEND A COUPLE OF THOUSAND DOLLARS ON HERS!)

Lay your bags flat on a cookie sheet or other flat frozen item so they will save space in your freezer this winter. (If it looks like it's going to slide...it WILL! So secure your stack.)

Aren't my lil' bags cute? This is our first year to use quart bags. I've been using gallon or even two gallon bags with our large family for so long! 


So, the Farmer's Wife has shared how to put up the harvest....now to share a recipe that didn't go so well to show you EVERYBODY has some recipes that just don't "hit a home run".

My yellow squash is coming in "hot and heavy" so I'm always looking for a creative way to use what God puts in my hands. 

A Google article raved over the "golden way" to use summer squash that everyone was raving about. (That should have been a warning to me right there!) Squash Butter! Supposedly the famed late Julia Child (the Public TV chef of my childhood) had made something similar...yahhh. 

I don't do anything small so I jumped in and made a 4X batch to begin with...The first batch came out brown instead of golden. I was having fun though and wasn't going to let Google snooker me! 

Our German Giant garlic harvest was huge and is a dream to work with.

By this time the house was smelling WONDERFUL with our freshly pulled Walla Walla onions and green garlic sauteing in the cast iron pan. (They reccommended a non-stick pan. My cast iron pans are non-stick if I heat it well.)

I sauted the onions and garlic till the house smelled DEVINE
before adding the grated squash.

My first batch yeilded a measly 3 half pints and was a disagreeable looking brown. 
(I'm saving peanut butter and Parmesan cheese lids now to use to freeze to save my precious canning flats!)

Not to be bested by Google, I set my sights on a beautiful golden Squash Butter that the article had inspired. I put on my thinking cap and geared up for SUCCESS! I set out with a heafty 5X batch, and I stood over the pans stirring/scraping OFTEN. I used large pizza pans as lids to help steam the squash rather than "fry it" as the recipe described. Then I used an immersion blender to get the smooth paste before cooking it down a bit more. It was MUCH better looking and tasting, but it was still....just ok for all that work. (The Farmer said it just tasted like garlicy squash...with "that look" on his face.)  I think the whole family liked the smell of the house more than the little bits of artisan bread with Squash Butter on it. I'll use it in an artisan bread this winter, but I'll not make another batch. Lesson learned...CANNER BEWARE of Internet recipes. 

My second batch wasn't much better...but it was yellow!

So as you can see I too am learning after 40 years of canning. But....it is fun to try something new! 

Abundant Blessings,

The Farmer's Wife

Val

P.S. If you've gotten this far, I assume you are interested in this blog. Nowadays blogs are connected to social media. I am not on any social media, so I'm counting on ya'll to pass on the information for others to connect with me. We've always believed word of mouth advertising is the best advertising. So you have my permission to use the photos in the blog to link with my address. Blogger is an "antique" so to speak and the email notifications and tec support are now gone. Thank you!