Freezing garden veg for winter

lizzywig

The parentals have a thousand apple trees in their garden (well not literally) and keep giving us cooking apples, I probably have approx 10lbs of cooking apples (maybe 20 apples). They also grow runner beans and gave given us 1.5lbs which is a large bowl full.

I am meal planned and shopped for the next 2 weeks and no recipes call for either apples or beans. I don't want to use them just for the sake of it, that in itself seems like a waste.

Can I freeze them? If so what would be the best way of doing this. I'm guessing chopping up the beans and blanching them and peeling/slicing the apples and freezing them in freezer bags...or should I stew them first?

Recipes would be welcome too. Obviously apple pie and apple crumble and green beans as a side dish but other than that I'm lacking inspiration.

Thanks in advance.

Sally_A

I made some apple sauce last night for use with pork. Similarly you can freeze larger portions for crumbles. It took about 12 apples to make 4 portions, but mine are smaller "eaters" so did not add sugar.

As for beans 1.5kg is only about 3 meals, if you are going to use them quickly, string the sides and chop, and open freeze without blanching, but you will need to use them within a couple of months. They can also be added to casseroles (they suit a chicken casserole nicely).

lizzywig

Apple sauce for pork...of course!!!! That's a really good idea.

Sally_A wrote: »

As for beans 1.5kg is only about 3 meals, if you are going to use them quickly, string the sides and chop, and open freeze without blanching, but you will need to use them within a couple of months. They can also be added to casseroles (they suit a chicken casserole nicely).

It's 1.5lbs so less than 1.5kg but I would say for us it would make approx 8 meals looking at them visually. When you say open freeze...? Does that mean just stringing and cutting them up rather than blanching? Sorry if I'm being dim.

rising_from_the_ashes

Personally, I'd go for blanching the beans first.

We tried freezing ours without blanching last year and they were really tough - have returned to blanching this years' crop!

Why_oh_why

We got a bag of apples off of parents this weekend - instead of (like I did with the previous bag we received kindly from someone on freegle) peeling and coring and freezing, this time I just cored the apples - put in the microwave for 3 minutes. The pulp was removed from the peel then frozen.

Then didn't want to waste the peels, so put them into a caramel sauce with some cinnamon - sieved it. The sauce is now in a jar for future use. Then, still thinking the peel had some use, we popped them into the oven for a few minutes.

So apple pulp in freezer, an apple caramel sauce and apple crisps :j

With the previous bag of apples I made an apple jam but OH can't 'get his head around apple jam' so we had to give that away!!

Sally_A

I tried blanched and unblanched last year, I used the unblanched first and they were fine - pre Xmas, granted i was using the blanched until around April, but found the fleshy part of the bean turned too mushy so I was basically left with skin and bean, and that was alight steaming rather than a boiling.

Still frozen beans are better than no beans in the veggie bereft early months of the year.

I also did french beans frozen whole, just topped and tailed them before freezing - they were lovely and lasted well into the next year.

V.Lucky

I have had a lot of cooking apples given to me, and after reading about freezing them on here, I sliced the, soaked them in salt water and froze them raw.

I have defrosted them and used them to see how they go, some went a slight brown colour, but I think I need to soak them longer next time. However, once cooked they tasted fine and you couldn't tell the difference.