Warning: my cooking skills and knowledge need definite improvement, therefore the need for this thread! :o
I’d like to do a lot of cooking with vegetables, except my problem is (a) I only cook for one or two people, and (b) I’d like to use many different vegetables.
Is it possible to buy a few different peppers, lots of mushrooms, broccoli, etc., wash them, cut them up, then freeze a whole bunch to take out when I need it?
I have tried to freeze fresh corn (on the cob). It didn’t turn out too well. The freezing and thawing process changed the texture of the corn, making it gummy. Maybe cutting it off the cob would help, I don’t know. I’m not sure about other vegetables; you’ll just have to experiment and see what happens.
I do have a tip. If you’ve cut up a vegetable, don’t put the pieces in a bag and throw it in the freezer. Spread the pieces out in a single layer on a cookie sheet and freeze that. When the pieces are frozen, transfer them to a baggie. That way the pieces will remain discrete, and not clump together into a big frozen glob. You can scoop out however much you need, and leave the rest in the bag in the freezer.
Some vegetables can be simply cut up then frozen, others require blanching (brief immersion in boiling water) beforehand - this softens and moistens the outside of the pieces and helps to prevent freezer burn and loss of texture and flavour. Some vegetables like mushrooms, peppers and onions might not need it though.
Cooked meat freezes better if it is coated in sauce or gravy (My company used to hand out 25 pound turkeys at Christmas - I’d cook ours, carve it up and divide it into a load of foil containers, make a gallon or two of gravy with the bones and pour this over, seal and freeze - made Sunday lunches a breeze for a month or two.
Corn on the cob definitely needs blanching before freezing - the conversion of sugars to starches in the kernels is enzymatic and doesn’t entirely stop in the freezer, but proper blanching can inhibit or destroy the enzymes. Some varieties freezre better than others, but frozen whole corn cobs are never going to be a patch on the fresh item though, no matter what you do.
Commercial vegtables are flash froxen which means the ice crystals do not get big enough to puncture cell walls so theres minimal difference in texture. Theres no easy way to flash freeze stuff at home so it might be better just to buy commercial frozen vegtables rather than try DIY.
No matter the vegetable, in my experience you can only freeze it if you plan to COOK it later; it will be mushy when it thaws, inedible as “fresh” vegetables.
Many, if not most, vegetables do better blanched before freezing.
And I agree - if you freeze them you’ll wind up cooking them. Texture changes - especially for peppers.
While commercially frozen vegetables are “flash frozen”, I have had good results with home freezing nonetheless. Proper preparation and blanching are important for good results, though.
There are books available on the topic - try a library or book store.
Alton Brown did a show on berries where he explained the ice crystals theory mentioned above, and shows the solution – dry ice.
Basically the idea is to get the stuff as cold as possible as fast as possible. So what you do is, put the stuff in freezer bags at the bottom of a styrofoam cooler, put a couple blocks of dry ice in, close the lid, and wait awhile. They will freeze up real quick and since only really tiny ice crystals will form, the food will not be damaged.
Have yet to try it, but he swears by it for strawberries.