Step One: Harvest the green beans.
Done. Though I must admit there's not much to them.
Hope my honey isn't too hungryStep Two: Clean and cut up green beans
I combined these steps because I only took one picture. :) Rinse your harvested green beans in cool water. Cut your cleaned beans into your desired length. I got maybe one serving out of the handful of green beans I harvested. That's after I culled two green beans because they were kinda soggy and off color. But I was able to get the seeds out of them.
SFGing will certainly help you stick to a diet.
Green bean seeds - almost enough to fill a squareBring a pot of water to a rolling boil. Put green beans into pot and boil for 3 minutes.
My pot of water didn't even stop boiling when I dropped in the beans.I had to laugh when the instructions said I could reuse the water for subsequent batches of beans. As if!
Step Four: Cool beans in ice water
After 3 mintues use a slotted spoon to fish your beans out of the boiling water and put them directly into a bowl of ice cold water for three minutes. Add more ice if necessary.
Yes, it literally needs to be ice cold
Leave in ice water three minutesStep Five: Drain beans and put into freezer bags.
Drain the water off the beans. I fished out the ice then poured the remaining water and beans into a strainer. The directions I found didn't say anything about patting the beans dry, but I did use a napkin to pick them up. That removed some moisture but not all. I squeezed as much air out of the freezer bag as I could, but it still had quite a bit of air in it, so I used a straw to "vacuum seal" it. Thankfully no green beans got lodged in the straw!
The instructions recommended putting the beans on the quick freeze shelf of the freezer, but I don't have one of those, so I just trotted the beans out to the deep freeze. Sorry no pics of that because it's outside and really dirty!
In the bag you go little green beans.
"Vacuum sealed" and ready for the deep freezeNow I'm off to Google "Saving green bean seeds"
References
Green Beans n More - How to freeze fresh green beans
Pick Your Own - How to freeze green beans and other beans
In step five, you can also spread them out on a wax paper lined cookie sheet and freeze them, then bag them when they are frozen solid. That way you can add to the bag as you get more beans, and when you want to cook them you can remove just the amount you need for a meal. The wax paper makes them easier to get off the cookie sheet. Without it they can freeze solid to the metal, and have to be partially thawed to get them all off.
ReplyDeleteGreat idea, Granny! I was wondering how I could add more beans without having to use another quart sized bag for 2 green beans.
ReplyDeleteYou crack me up! Just give it some time. That harvest will probably be more than you can handle. I know my is getting out of control. I have to harvest every day or else they get too long and too hard.
ReplyDeleteYou know, you can do the same thing with chicken breast (freeze them on wax paper on a cookie sheet in the freezer) that way, you just pull out however many breast you want without having to break them apart or defrost the whole bag.