Ask the Readers: How do you keep frozen bread tasting fresh?

Homemade bread - including my successful Sun Oven experiment

Please allow me a bit of a brag: I have stopped buying bread at the store altogether. Between my NutriMilland my Bosch mixer,making bread with wheat from my food storage couldn't be easier. I bake four loaves at a time (the Bosch can handle six, but I only have four bread pans!) and freeze them.

Here's the problem: my frozen loaves just aren't as moist and tasty as they are when fresh.I have experimented with the type of sugar I use in the bread - white sugar, honey, or brown sugar. I have experimented with the type of wrapping I give the bread before freezing it - a freezer bag, foil, or a layer of plastic wrap, then foil.

Nothing I've tried seems to make much of a difference.

So I ask you, gentle readers: what are your best tricks for freezing bread so that the taste and texture when it thawed is like freshly baked bread? 

In Which I Make Tasteless Pumpkin Puree

I bought The Resilient Gardener: Food Production and Self-Reliance in Uncertain Times by Carol Deppe several months ago. Right away, I knew that I had discovered a true gem for those of us with a preparedness mindset. I just wish I had made it to the chapter on squash and pumpkins before yesterday.

This is what I found on page 199 about Cucurbita pepo, the squash species that includes the "Baby Pam" pie pumpkins we harvested in September:

 "...pepos require only seven to fourteen days of curing.... The pepos are prime right after the curing period 

and deteriorate from there, with the flesh getting stringier, and the sugar and flavor going downhill."

Ack! I should have processed our pumpkins long ago! Well, now I know, and if you grew up in the 80s you'll remember that knowing is half the battle.

Part of me wanted to just forget the whole idea of pumpkin puree and to simply enjoy the pumpkins as fall decorations. Well, that wouldn't make a very exciting blog entry, would it?

Washing the pumpkins

I picked through our pumpkins and selected the six pumpkins that felt heavy for their size. They ranged from 1lb 5 oz to over 2 lb in weight. They got a quick wash.

Oiled up and ready to bake 

I rubbed their skins with a little oil and placed them directly on the rack in my 400 degree oven. I was very glad that I remembered to put a baking sheet underneath the pumpkins because several of them definitely oozed as they baked.

Baked!

It took about 45 minutes for the smallest pumpkins to cook completely and over an hour for the largest one. I removed them from an oven when I could slide a paring knife into the pumpkin without any resistance.

Halved and ready to scoop out the seeds

It was very easy to slice the pumpkins open. I'm so glad that I chose to roast the pumpkin first rather than slice the pumpkin while it was still raw. I like having all my fingers, thank you very much!

After I scooped out the seeds and stringy business, it was a simple task to remove the pulp from the pumpkin skin. Easy peasy!

At this point, I gave the pulp a tentative taste. It certainly didn't smell like the pumpkin you get from a can. It also didn't taste like canned pumpkin. It didn't taste like much of anything, in fact.

I proceeded on and pureed the pulp in batches in my food processor. Then I froze the puree in 1 cup portions in FoodSaver baggies.

So now I have 5 cups of tasteless pumpkin puree hanging out in my freezer. I'd call this experiment a big FAILURE. The process was certainly easy, but end result was poor. But you can bet I'll never forget to process my pumpkins on time!

Please tell me I'm not alone when it comes to kitchen failures! I feel like I've had more than my fair share recently.  

One Thing To Do With Those Pecks Of Peppers

Do you remember how expensive produce was last winter?? Even in a normal year, I regularly have to pay between $2-3 per red bell pepper in January. That's both ridiculous and completely unnecessary.

Peppers from my garden

If you have access to a bunch of garden-fresh peppers, it couldn't be easier to freeze them for future use.

I like to cut the top off the pepper and then scoop out the seeds. Next, I cut the pepper in half and pop the pieces in a freezer bag. That's it! You can cut the peppers into smaller pieces before freezing, but I prefer to freeze halves so I can customize the size of pepper pieces for each dish. I simply grab the number of pepper halves that I need for the recipe and throw the rest back in the freezer. It only takes a minute or two of thawing before the peppers will be soft enough to cut with a chef's knife.

I also freeze jalapenos, poblanos, and other peppers using this method.

One of these days, I'll break out the dehydrator and try my hand it dehydrating peppers. But until then, to the freezer they go.

Why I'm Not Canning Green Beans This Year

We've harvested over 15 pounds of green beans from our garden so far. Assuming the garden survives the next week (the highs are projected to be in the 100s for the next seven days), we'll continue to get beans for several weeks.

Normally, I'd be canning all those green beans. Not this year. Here's why:

1. The beans don't develop all at once. We pick beans every other day and end up with enough beans to fill about two or three quart jars. While pressure canning green beans isn't hard, processing 2-3 qts every two days for weeks on end is kind of a drag.
2. My family really doesn't care for canned green beans. There are few things more depressing than to proudly serve my home-grown and home-canned green beans only to have everyone avoid eating them. Well, Baby Dear loves them, but everyone else only eats them out of a sense of duty.  
3. My family will eat frozen green beans - and they couldn't be easier to prepare. They stay a vibrant green and are definitely not mushy. They also maintain more of their nutrition since they are significantly less processed.

How to prepare green beans for freezing:

Getting ready to blanch the beans

1. Wash the beans and remove the stem ends. I remove both ends of the bean, but you can leave the little curly end on, if you prefer.
2. Bring a large pot of water to boil.
3. Blanch the beans in boiling water for three minutes. Drain, then chill the beans in ice water for another three minutes. Drain. While it may be tempting, don't skip this step. You must blanch the beans to deactivate the enzymes in the beans. You'll end up with a much nicer end product with the blanching/chilling process.
4. Package and freeze.

Vacuum sealed and ready for the freezer 

As a person who has made preparedness her hobby, I get in this mindset that all my food storage has to be shelf stable. I still love to can and I believe that the majority of my food storage should indeed be shelf stable. Sometimes you just gotta do what you like and do what works for your family. We're going to eat these green beans with pleasure and be a bit more self-reliant in the process.


Are we the lone canned green bean haters out there? How do you balance shelf-stable vs. perishable foods in your food storage?