Bag It and Tag It!

Veggie Prep Work

A couple weeks ago my sister, Laura, gave me another pumpkin and squash. Since I had just made a batch of my Butternut Squash Soup Puree, I left them on the porch shelf. My husband moved them to a shelf in the basement so they were out of the way. I always meant to cut them up and freeze them, but never got around to it. Until today.

My husband had been hauling wood to the basement for the wood furnace and came upstairs with the news that the pumpkin had met its demise. The bottom had gotten rotten (haha! love that - gotten rotten!) and fell off the shelf. It made a mess on the floor and he wanted me to clean it up right away before it ruined the floor paint.

After disposing of the pumpkin remains and cleaning up the floor, I decided I better take care of the squash before it ended up in the same fatal state.

I brought it upstairs and cut the outer shell off, cleaned out the strings and seeds, and sliced it into small chunks. Then I placed them into freezer bags and put them into the freezer for later use.

I had prepped several other vegetables (cauliflower, broccoli and celery) a few days earlier and not sure why I didn't do the squash then. I guess "out of sight, out of mind" applied here.

Any job is easier when you can break it up. Therefore, I started cleaning, cutting, chopping, bagging and freezing the vegetables for my soups ahead of time. That way, if I'm pressed for time, the grunt work is already done. It also prevents vegetable spoilage ~ at least in my house. Unfortunately, because there's just the two of us now, if I don't freeze some of the vegetables, they'll go to waste.

I also found that if I cut the vegetables into smaller pieces, I can get by with cooking them in half the time. I realize it takes longer during the prep time this way, so it's really a matter of preference. Carrots especially need to be cut smaller as they seem to take longer during the cooking time to become tender.

Finally, if you frequently freeze vegetables, you'll want to mark the date on the bags so you remember to use the oldest ones first.


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