The Hard Way

There ways to do things the easy way and there are ways to do things the hard way. In the first month of Fall, most of us have finished harvesting our garden (or are about to) and a lot of us prepare double batches of meals and treats and plan on freezing the extra items but beware, not all things freeze well. Leafy greens, such as cabbage, spinach and kale, for example, do not freeze well. Personally, I have also never had much success with yeast dough freezing well even when a recipe specifies the dough may be frozen and baked later.The most success I have with yeast dough is to bake it, allow it cool thoroughly, wrap it super well, double bag it and then freeze it. My “no-frost” freezer, frosts everything so I also try to use up things I freeze in a timely way. Meals like lasagna, Spanikopita and treats like zucchini, pumpkin and banana breads freeze well as do preportioned cookie dough servings. If you have never made preportioned cookie dough, it’s easy, simply scoop out cookie portions into a parchment-lined sheet pan, place in the freezer and then into resealable bags once the dough has frozen (or you remember you made preportioned cookie dough, whichever comes first.) Jam does not freeze solid so keep it upright, unless you enjoy cleaning up sticky messes, no judging, and things like berries and green beans may be spread out into a single layer, frozen and stored for later uses. there always seem to be one or two leftover bananas from bunches so don’t forget to freeze over ripe bananas and make banana breads throughout the year. Frozen bananas also make delicious and healthy additions to smoothies. See? There aren’t too many “don’t s” of freezing and many easy dos so enjoy!

​Please share your tips and tricks as well as your successes and failures with freezing in the comments section.