How We Blanch, Freeze and Like to Eat Broccoli {Stumps & All}

“It's been many years since I had such an exemplary vegetable.”

~ Mr. Collins, Pride and Prejudice (2005 Movie Adaption)

We had a bountiful crop of broccoli this year! The excess flowers were prepared for freezer storage. Being a no waste advocate, I was excited to see how my freezer stash increased by shredding all the broccoli stumps and placing them separately in smaller sized baggies. I couldn't think of tossing those home-grown beauties and you don't realize how much the stumps add up! These I have been including in homemade vegetables soups, pasta sauces and layered in lasagnas.

To properly freeze broccoli (most vegetables in fact), you need to blanch them. This helps to retain flavor, color and texture (though I didn't bother with the stumps since they would be thrown into soups and sauces where the quality didn't need to be top notch). 

The first step is to thoroughly wash your produce. I added a few drops of grapefruit seed extract in the water to kill any undesirables. I also separated the flowers from the stumps reserving the stumps to be processed later.

The second step would be to blanch your broccoli. This can be done in two ways, by submerging in boiling water for three minutes or by steaming for five minutes. I chose to steam this time in order to preserve more of the nutritional qualities.  

Once the broccoli has finished steaming, immediately plunge into an ice water bath for three minutes. This stops the cooking process. (You will notice some of our broccoli was starting to go to seed when we picked it as we had a sudden heat spell but it still tasted great!)

Once the time is complete, place your broccoli in a colander in order to remove excess water. Though not mandatory, I also follow this with a journey in the salad spinner for additional water extraction.

Place in freezer bags and freeze (sorry I forget to take photos at this point). Make sure you remove as much air as possible from the inside of the bag. This can be accomplished by sealing your baggie and leaving a tiny corner open. Place a straw inside the opening and suck out any extra air. Quickly seal and store.

If you want to be able to access customized amounts of broccoli for different recipes, place your final product (blanched and cooled as shared above) of broccoli in a single layer on a cookie sheet and flash freeze them. Once frozen you can put these in a plastic freezer container and scoop out the individual pieces as needed.

Now on to the stumps. Once they were nice and clean, we shredded them. As mentioned earlier, we didn't bother blanching these first as they would be added to soups and sauces so perfect quality wasn't necessary and time was more important to me at that moment.

The shredder attachment on my Bosch mixer made easy work of this little project! I have heard of these kitchen tools being referred to as the maidservants for the modern Proverbs 31 woman. I must say I agree! 

Of course, I had to label the baggies that the shredded stumps would be placed into. Just a note to write on your labels before adhering to slippery plastic! You could see I struggled with writing at that point.

As with the broccoli flowers, you want to remove all air from the freezer bag. I like to flatten down the contents in the bags so that they will stack nicely in the freezer like little office files. 

We ended up with eight full baggies (2 cups each) of the shredded stumps which will supplement many meals nicely! The fun part is to put all your homegrown produce in the freezer for those "rainy days". So very convenient for the cook!

Some of our favorite ways to prepare broccoli is steamed with assorted vegetables and drizzled with garlic infused olive oil, a dash of butter, sea salt and freshly ground pepper. Lemon Broccoli Bowtie Pasta (photo above) is also a favorite. Don't forget about cream of broccoli soup. A tasty summer dish is to add the blanched broccoli into pasta salads (our favorite recipe is shared below).

Favorite Summer Pasta Salad {with Blanched Broccoli}

Toss together the following:

• 1 bag of cooked and cooled rotini pasta (you can also use whole grain pasta)
• 1/3 bottle of Salad Supreme Seasoning (Size 2.62 ounce)
• 1/4 cup of chopped red onion
• 1 green bell pepper chopped
• 1 can of sliced olives (use basic black or green marinated ones for different flavors)
• 1 basket of cherry tomatoes cut in half or a few garden fresh diced tomatoes
• 2 - 3 cups of blanched broccoli flowers
• Italian Dressing (according to taste, about a cup or more)

Serve chilled. You can always add more or different veggies to this than the amounts specified. The more raw ingredients the better (and healthier). This makes for a tasty lunch or is a wonderful side dish to grilled meats, etc.

Another dish we like to serve is White Bean Broccoli Alfredo. Simply prepare the pasta of your choice (our favorite is the brown rice spaghetti from Trader Joe's). Sprinkle pasta with a liberal amount of steamed broccoli followed by a generous serving of white bean Alfredo sauce (recipe follows and adapted slightly from the Prudent Homemaker).

White Bean Alfredo Sauce

Blend together the following:

• 2 cups cooked white beans (I use my pint jars of canned butter beans)
• 1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
• 1 1/2 cups of cream
• 3 cloves of fresh garlic, minced
• 1 tsp. sea salt (or to taste)
• ground pepper to taste

Cook blended ingredients in a small saucepan until heated through and starting to bubble. Keep stirring so that it doesn't burn. I like to prepare this sauce over the traditional Alfredo for the extra protein that the beans offer.

Did you plant broccoli this year? Perhaps you stocked up at a Farmer's Market? And finally, what do you do with the stumps?

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