How to Freeze Green Beans and Sugar Snap Peas

Are you tired of knocking chunks of frost or ice off frozen green beans or peas?  For this reason, Karen and I used to turn down our noses on frozen green beans.  No more.

Instead of blanching green beans in boiling water, we stir fry them in olive oil.  We do this for 4 or 5 minutes until the beans turn a uniform bright green.  Sometimes we grill some garlic before adding the green beans.  We don't ice them afterwards.  We keep them away from water.  Otherwise, we'll end up with the same problem we're trying to avoid.  We let them cool a few minutes, stick them in bags and pop them in the freezer.  You can even put the beans in gallon bags; they won't stick to each other, at least not much.  When you want to use them, take out what you need, put the bag back in the freezer, quickly stir fry again and enjoy.  They taste almost like fresh vegetables.

Today I extended this treatment to sugar snap peas.

"That's cool," says Virginia. "Show us something else, please."

I thought she'd never ask.  Here's a view of the parsnips I'm letting flower so we'll have seeds to plant this fall.

Don't try this unless you have tomato plants to waste.  I've been depositing fresh goat manure along our fence line.  I planted a bunch of tomato seedlings right into that hot manure.  Will they grow?

Check out these beets, ready to roast...

 our first cucumber of 2011...

and nice stands of peas, carrots and potatoes.

Finally, the big question:  Will this tiny guy develop into a 35-pound Georgia Candy Roaster?