Blanching the beans
May. 14th, 2014 09:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
janestarzLover-of-beans, I can be called. Green beans, string beans, flat beans and anything that grows on a vine and is green is yummy in any quantity. I was called "bonenmeid" by my father and have been seen eating nearly 800 grammes of green beans in one sitting.
I was in the Lidl, my supermarket of choice tonight, and I saw they had a pound of flat beans for a mere 99 cents on sale. Of course sale prices will drop further this summer, but this was already pretty cheap. I bought four packets (2 kilos) and tried my hand at blanching.
Half a packet of beans will keep me well enough fed (a whole one will keep me happy) and having meal-sized bundles in my freezer seemed like a good idea. Blanching the beans will prepare them well enough for the freezing process. I know about blanching because my parents and grandparents have often done this with produce from their gardens. From cauliflower to green beans, everything was frozen to see them through the cold winter and its soaring food prices and scarce variation.
Setting up a blanching line was easy and Ikeas awesome sieve-appendix for my sink a true saviour.
I set a large pan to boil water, and using the two pot-sized colanders (also Ikea) that match my pans I blanched batches of 250 grammes at a time. Eight batches (and roughly half an hour later), my kitchen looked like hippos had danced a ballet in it, my trousers were quite wet from wiping my hands on them time and again, and I had eight bags of flat beans in my freezer.
Also, flat beans that have boiled for 2 minutes are quite yummy and they look gorgeously delicious.
This should make cooking responsible dinners-for-one a lot easier and is sure to keep me away from fast food. At only 50 cents of vegetables per meal, a very economic choice to boot.
It doesn't take up much space either, just like those two packets of soup vegetables I keep on hand for emergencies. Cheap veggie dinners FTW!
I was in the Lidl, my supermarket of choice tonight, and I saw they had a pound of flat beans for a mere 99 cents on sale. Of course sale prices will drop further this summer, but this was already pretty cheap. I bought four packets (2 kilos) and tried my hand at blanching.
Half a packet of beans will keep me well enough fed (a whole one will keep me happy) and having meal-sized bundles in my freezer seemed like a good idea. Blanching the beans will prepare them well enough for the freezing process. I know about blanching because my parents and grandparents have often done this with produce from their gardens. From cauliflower to green beans, everything was frozen to see them through the cold winter and its soaring food prices and scarce variation.
Setting up a blanching line was easy and Ikeas awesome sieve-appendix for my sink a true saviour.
I set a large pan to boil water, and using the two pot-sized colanders (also Ikea) that match my pans I blanched batches of 250 grammes at a time. Eight batches (and roughly half an hour later), my kitchen looked like hippos had danced a ballet in it, my trousers were quite wet from wiping my hands on them time and again, and I had eight bags of flat beans in my freezer.
Also, flat beans that have boiled for 2 minutes are quite yummy and they look gorgeously delicious.
This should make cooking responsible dinners-for-one a lot easier and is sure to keep me away from fast food. At only 50 cents of vegetables per meal, a very economic choice to boot.
It doesn't take up much space either, just like those two packets of soup vegetables I keep on hand for emergencies. Cheap veggie dinners FTW!
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Date: 2014-05-15 07:10 am (UTC)