Mixing It Up

You know vegetables are good for you, so what's better for you than one veggie? Yep, you guessed it - 2 or more. What's even better is that you can freeze your own mixed vegetables and make up your own favorite medleys.

Once Upon a Time, some creative cook wondered what would happen if corn and lima beans spent some quality time together. And you know what happened next. Succotash was born and became everyone's first mixed vegetable.

After that, another inventive person mixed up some peas and carrots and that became as common as succotash. A trend was born. The game was afoot!

Don't stop there, however. There's a wealth of lonely veggies out there in the world just waiting for a matchmaker to come along and pair them up with another kindred soul. In fact, the trend today is the create a medley - three or more veggies all happily sharing the same freezer bag.

You can spend a tidy sum of money on mixed veggies at the grocery store and you might be disappointed with what you get. Usually the cheapest vegetable is the one that takes more than its fair share of the bag. Carrots are notorious for this shameful behavior. That means in a bag of frozen peas, broccoli, cauliflower, and carrots (you guessed it) you're probably going to get more carrots than any of the other contenders.

So, what to do? Simple. Make up your own combinations. What vegetables do you like? How will you use them? These questions will guide your choices.

I do quite a bit of stir fry, so I like broccoli, cauliflower, red and green bell pepper strips, sugar snap peas, and mushrooms for one combo.

Another favorite includes water chestnuts, red and green bell pepper strips, onion slices, celery, and bok choi.

Dinner and A Mixed Vegetable

Marc Matsumoto who tweets as norecipes and who, in his spare time, co-hosts Dinner and a Movie checked in with mushrooms, corn and fava beans as his choice.

Go for the crunch, not for the mush

Follow the normal procedures for freezing vegetables. This means blanching and quick cooling (peppers don't need blanching).

The Great Spinach Harvest

Blatant Self-Promotion (BSP)

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Preserving Food comes out tomorrow!! Yea and Yippee! I am so excited I could can a cucumber. (Actually, that's a very bad idea, but you understand.)

On With the Main Event

People seem to have a love-hate relationship with this vegetable. Often, it's the result of having it crammed down your little gullet when you were a child or having had the miserable experience of eating canned spinach. Feeding that gray, glutinous glob of stuff to your family should be a criminal offense.

Fresh, young spinach is tasty, and spinach you've put up yourself and frozen is as good as fresh, if you do it right!

True Grit

I plant a mix of spinach varieties. I like the different textures that the three main types of spinach give. There are Savoy, Semi-Savoy, and Smooth (also known as flat-leafed).

The crinklier the spinach leaf, the more sand or grit that gets trapped there. You definitely want all that sand out before you freeze this veggie. This means rinsing the leaves in several changes of cool water.

Swirl the leaves around, a few handfuls at a time. If you overcrowd the sink, you're going to make slow, slow progress. Once the water is completely free of grit, set the leaves aside and move on to the next few handfuls.

If you're using the leaves in a salad, a salad spinner is a nifty way to get rid of excess moisture. If you're going to freeze the leaves, you're ready to move on to the next step: Blanching.

Blanche DuBois or A Spinach Car Named Desire

Blanching time for young, tender leaves is 2 minutes. Place the leaves in rapidly boiling water, using a wooden spoon to make sure they get thoroughly submerged. Replace the lid. Begin timing when the water returns to a full boil.

Remove the spinach from the pot and plunge immediately into cold water. This stops the cooking process. When the leaves are cool (and it takes about as long to cool as it does to blanch), drain thoroughly in a colander.

I like soft freezer bags better than the stiffer ones with zippy closures. I can mold the bag to the food I'm freezing and squeeze out the excess air and moisture.

Recipe Suggestion

Add a pint of thawed, chopped spinach to the middle layer of your favorite lasagna recipe. It adds color, flavor, and texture and makes a family favorite even better!