Shredding and Freezing Your Excess Garden Produce

We garden year round and when those leftover "odds and ends" produce come in toward the end of the season, I must admit to being quite tired of them. This is just a little reminder to encourage you (and me) to "waste not" and therefore "want not" when you are feeling the garden harvest burn-out. Though tired of preserving food, this is our golden opportunity to bless the household for the future  Bring out the food processor and shred away those garden goods! There is money to be made by simply saving what you have! This would also apply to any vegetables you have sitting in your crisper (process them up before they go bad!).

When the easy work of shredding is done, I like to place them in small baggies (approx 2 cups worth per bag) and line them up in the freezer. No need to blanch most vegetables (when you are shredding small like this) if your purpose is to use them for foods such as quiches, pasta sauces, soups, stews, casseroles, etc. The reason you usually flash freeze foods on trays is so the vegetables don't clump up together. However, if you store them in smaller bags and for these kinds of recipes, it isn't an issue since you will use the whole bag.

I also like to keep them in a separate section in the freezer. A plastic basket full of your pre-shredded veggies makes for effortless finding of food and you will love grocery shopping in your freezer! If I need to make a lasagna sauce, for example, I take a stroll into the freezer and shop through my shredded produce. All that needs to be done is to sauté some onions and garlic and add the veggies into the pot, bag by bag, with no mess to clean up. Once I am satisfied with the amount, I simply add my tomato sauce and seasonings for a homemade, homegrown sauce!

Because of this, I rarely have to purchase produce! There is such a stockpile of comfort food ingredients tucked away in these little pouches and the convenience of these prepared foods is priceless! Some of my favorite foods to shred and freeze are broccoli (don't forget those stumps!), carrots, rutabaga, and squash (the white shredded vegetable in the photos are rutabaga and not to be confused with potatoes which would require special treatment prior to freezing).

"It is wise, therefore, for all persons to devise a general plan, which they will at least keep in view, and aim to accomplish, and by which, a proper proportion of time shall be secured, for all the duties of life... In forming such a plan, every woman must accommodate herself to the peculiarities of her situation. If she has a large family, and a small income, she must devote far more time to the simple duty of providing food and raiment..."

~ Catherine Beecher (1800-1878), A Treatise on Domestic Economy

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