I got a late start on getting the idea to preserve more fresh food this year, mostly fruit. I did my usual preserving of tomatoes, zucchini, cucumbers, green beans, peppers, corn, carrots, celery and apples, but wish I had done more with berries. I did freeze some of the wild raspberries and blackberries growing around the yard and some of the raspberries bought at the farmer's market. I also froze a few batches of store bought organic strawberries and blueberries. Buying a container of fresh strawberries and freezing half is much cheaper than buying a container of fresh strawberries and throwing away half because they went bad before you ate them. That's what was happening. A container of fresh berries only lasts about 2 - 3 days before they start getting moldy. It takes about a week for us to eat a container of berries, so I ended up throwing a lot away. I did compost them, so it wasn't a total loss.
Next year, I hope to freeze a bunch of strawberries from the farmer's market when they are in season. I have a strawberry patch with about 70 plants. They are young plants, so I don't get more than a dozen strawberries per day. Just enough for the boys and I to eat fresh.
Here's how I froze the berries:
Make room in the freezer for a cookie sheet or two.
Wash the berries and lay in a single layer on a cookie sheet.
Put in freezer for 2 - 3 hours.
When berries are frozen, put in freezer safe containers or freezer safe bags.
I use the FoodSaver to freeze food. If you don't have one and are interested in freezing food, I highly recommend you invest in one. They run from about $50 to over $100. Mine was about $80. The higher end models are well worth the extra money. They are very quiet and seal the bag much better. I had a low end model that died. It sometimes had trouble properly sucking the air out of the bag before it sealed. My new FoodSaver is more powerful and doesn't have a problem sucking out all of the air. You can buy pre-made FoodSaver bags, or rolls and make your own FoodSaver bags. I buy the rolls, so I can adjust the size based on how much I will be freezing.
I tried skipping the cookie sheet part, but ended up with a clump of raspberries all frozen together. It's ok if you are going to use all of them at once, but I like to use a few at a time.
Freezing Food Resources
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