Saving vegetables!

MiniLaura

OK I have a few questions regarding vegetables/fruit

I currently chop and freeze raw onions for use at future date, seem to work fine, is garlic ok to do? Chop or freeze cloves whole?

Tomatoes - use around 12 or so a week for salads, but only use part of them (not keen on the middle green bit) so that ends up in the bin (dont have compost)

Would it be possible to freeze these bits of tomato and then make into a tomato soup when there is enough? Any good recipes or tips for home made tomato soup?

I use tinned tomatoes to make pasta sauce and blend it. Its quite runny and would like to use for pizza topping - any tips to thicken it up, would tomato puree work?

Any general tips about saving leftovers to use in something else? just freeze or cook?

Olliebeak

Freezing garlic - I just peel the cloves and freeze them whole. That way you can defrost them (defrost is quick) and then mince, chop or slice whatever you want - or jut put a few small whole ones into a casserole. I tend to buy one of those little nets of three bulbs, then peel and freeze them all at once. Lasts me for ages as we don't use a great deal of garlic - and I was sick to death of them drying out before we had a chance of using them up.

ZoeGirl_3

Well, my two cents, something I have started doing lately...

I cut in half and core my APPLES for my son to eat, and freeze the cored pieces, and then when I have a collection I boil it up in a little water and then strain out the pips etc and this makes a great thin apple sauce mix (that you can sweeten with sugar as desired) to serve with meats or try and replace a little butter in recipes with thin apple sauce...

I haven't tried freezing garlic, but thanks for the tip!!

Most veges I think you have to blanch in boiling water before freezing don't you? I am too chicken to try it incase I waste something!!

poppyoscar_3

MiniLauraRocks wrote: »

I use tinned tomatoes to make pasta sauce and blend it. Its quite runny and would like to use for pizza topping - any tips to thicken it up, would tomato puree work?

I put them in a pan, add some garlic and chopped onion and a little olive oil and reduce it until its thicker before whizzing it! Really tasty on a pizza!

PO xx

Magentasue

poppyoscar wrote: »

I put them in a pan, add some garlic and chopped onion and a little olive oil and reduce it until its thicker before whizzing it! Really tasty on a pizza!

PO xx

I do similar - fry onion and garlic first, add drained tinned tomatoes (chopped), salt, pepper, herbs, brown sugar and a little of something spicy like worcester sauce or sweet chilli sauce.

Thick enough for pizza if tomatoes are drained.

Olliebeak

ZoeGirl wrote: »

Well, my two cents, something I have started doing lately...

I cut in half and core my APPLES for my son to eat, and freeze the cored pieces, and then when I have a collection I boil it up in a little water and then strain out the pips etc and this makes a great thin apple sauce mix (that you can sweeten with sugar as desired) to serve with meats or try and replace a little butter in recipes with thin apple sauce...

I haven't tried freezing garlic, but thanks for the tip!!

Most veges I think you have to blanch in boiling water before freezing don't you? I am too chicken to try it incase I waste something!!

good tip about the apple cores .

Freezing veggies - I've been freezing some veggies bought on whoopsie from the supermarket and find that some do need blanching first - but don't let that put you off. When you find some baby runner beans for 10p at 10pm there's no way you can cook them to use up OR leave them there on the shelf! Just bring a pan of water to the boil, snip off the very ends of the beans and cut in half - then put them into boiling water for about 2 mins. Remove them and put immediately into iced water (to stop the cooking process). I then spread them out on a clean tea-towel or piece of kitchen roll and pat dry. Instructions often suggest to spread them out on a baking tray (or similar flat item) to stop them freezing together in a big lump - and place in the freezer till frozen. Then they can be bagged - don't forget to write on the container/bag what they are and the date. It sounds more complicated than it really is and I would recommend that you give it a go. I do carrots and parsnips in the same way. Haven't bothered with cauli and broccoli because I can never find them cheap enough for it to be worthwhile freezing them - the bags of frozen are cheap enough anyway.

With onions, I just peel, chop and put into a sealable bag. THEN I put that bag inside another one to stop the smell from invading everything else in the freezer. I don't bother blanching as onions have a high water content and I don't bother laying them on a tray either. If they clump together I just whack the bag on the worktop to break up the pieces. Just don't leave the bag out of the freezer for very long when using them as they soon defrost. I buy the large bags of SmartPrice onions from Asda and usually spend a Saturday morning sorting them - but OH complains about the smell when he decides to honour us with his presence . I do find this one of the biggest time savers of all the 'shortcuts' that I practice.

MeAllOver

I use tinned tomatoes to make pasta sauce and blend it. Its quite runny and would like to use for pizza topping - any tips to thicken it up, would tomato puree work?

I use tinned tomatoes too but have recently been using the cartons of creamed/seived tomatoes because you get a richer pre-blended version that's still cheap. So for pizza sauce i would mix it about 50/50 with tomato puree. For pasta sauce I'd add some fried up onion, garlic and any other veggies.

I still add tinned tomatoes if I'm making pasta bake because a lot of the water boils away anyway. Which reminds me - you can liquidise a tin of tomatoes and then slowly boil it to thicken it up. You can even put your dry pasta straight in the liquidised tomatoes and cook for 10 mins. The pasta absorbs the liquid. You may need to put a lid on it, but it means you only need one pan too.

The way I used to use tinned tomatoes on pizza was: drain the tomatoes and use the juice instead of water in the dough. Then liquidise the tomatoes with some tomato puree for the sauce.

hth

ZoeGirl_3

Still thinking, I want to try roasting my pumpkin seeds, have been looking at recipes online and someone suggested one over in weezl's 50p till xmas thread.

Also, something I tried the other day was to scrub my potatos clean and then thick cut the skin off. I then fried the skins (not too thin, but not as thick as chips) in a little oil (2 TBSPs) in a covered frypan (could do in the oven in less oil, but was in a hurry, and already using the oven). Then I boiled the potatos without skin and used for potato cakes the next day. And no waste at all!!

Has anyone tried parboiling veges and freezing them for quick roasting later? Anyone know if it would be a bit like the quick roast ones you can buy?

Oh, and if you have to use a lemon/lime/orange etc for juice but not zest, then before you squeeze the juice out, zest the skin (even with a potato peeler but scrape off the pith or white stuff as it is bitter apparently) and freeze the zest (in a little juice if you have any left). Then you can add it to lemon chicken or use to make lemonade or something else later. Lemon bars, mmm.

HTH and will keep thinking...

Triggles

Argh! Typed up message and page locked and lost it! Will try again...

We chop up and freeze the following in separate large bags - onions, carrots, mushrooms, peppers, bananas. I just get as much air out of the bags as I can, lay them relatively flat in the freezer, then just shake the bag a bit here and there while it's freezing - keeps it from freezing all together in one solid lump.

We peel and chunk up the bananas before we freeze them - and use them for smoothies, as they give them a nice thick texture, good flavour, and then we don't have to use ice.

We don't blanch the carrots, and have never had a problem with them.

Bongedone

I found a large box of frozen minced garlic cubes in the ethnic freezer section at ASDA. Worked out much cheaper than buying, peeling, mincing and then freezing my own. £1.40 a box it was. They also had ginger.