Well it has been a while since I've posted! I did a lot of canning last year and took a whole lot of photos and wrote the drafts and then life happened. Well that's being one Mad Momma for ya I keep myself extremely busy! But I really want to get back into my canning series because in all honesty I've become obsessed!
Next up is squash! I love squash and for the first time I grew my own in my very first vegetable garden! I couldn't even tell you how excited I was! Perhaps I planted too many because I'm picking up to five a day! Luckily near the end of the season we had a brutal hail storm and it killed almost all of my plants. Yes I was happy my squash plants died!
I started picking squash from my garden around Mid-June and it's now August. It seems to me that it has a pretty long growing season but it's peak is in the hotter months. You can find squash at your grocery stores or local farms. But where I'm from squash grows like a weed and I started the plants from seeds and they're now the size of beach balls. Below is a picture of those suckers! Plus they're attempting to kill the pepper plants and have succeeded with half of the strawberries. We have to trim them back every couple of days! It's a very easy plant to grow and considering I paid about a penny per seed and those plants have yielded $30 or more in fruit; I'd say that growing your own is not a bad investment. This year I am most definitely building a trellis.
So with all of that squash laying around I thought there had to be a way to preserve these! We couldn't eat them nearly fast enough. I've never preserved squash before so this is a first and I kind of made it up as I went. So after freezing my first batch I did some research and found I was pretty spot on, which I probably should of done the research first. Doing this is really simple and takes no time at all. We will be freezing shredded zucchini for bread and bite sized zucchini and yellow squash for side and main dishes.
Bite Sized Summer Squash
Here's what you'll need.
- Any type of Summer Squash, I used Yellow Squash and Zucchini
- 1 large pot
- 1 large bowl
- Ice
- 2 large spoons or tongs
- Quart Ziploc freezer bags
First step is of course cleaning. I soaked my squash in the cleaning solution I found here. I let it soak for about 10 minutes, then lightly scrubbed it with a fruit scrubber.
I then cut them into bite sized pieces. A good tip about squash is the smaller the squash, the better. The larger they get, the tougher they are. They also get more seeds and become bitter. I used some big squash, because I simply don't like to waste food, but I wouldn't do it again. I could only use a small portion of the squash because the bigger the squash got, the spongier the center was. You want your squash to be firm, not squishy.
Now that your squash is cleaned and cut, it's time to blanch. Blanching is boiling or steaming vegetables for a short amount of time. Doing this stops enzyme's from breaking down the food which would cause loss of taste and texture. It also kills bacteria that could be harmful when you eat it. Make sure to not over blanch, this will cause the vegetables to become mushy.
Fill a large pot half way full with water, bring to a boil. Add squash while being careful to not over crowd the pot. Your blanching time begins when the water returns to a boil, this should only take a minute. Blanch your squash for 1-2 minutes. You can reuse the blanching water 3-5 times.
After blanching quickly transfer the squash to a large bowl filled with ice water. I used my large punch bowls since it was the largest bowl I had. Let sit for 5 minutes.
After cooling transfer squash to a dry towel. After the Zucchini was blanched it had turned a light honeydew green. The squash on the left is blanched compared to the two pieces of squash on the right. The squash should still be fairly crisp after this entire process. Any dark or mushy pieces and you know that you over blanched.
Before blotting dry if any of the squash has it's seeds falling off, just gently pull them off. I personally like to eat the squash, not a mouthful of seeds.
We found that squash retains a lot of water. Even after we patted them dry with a paper towel they were still pretty wet. After we packed them the water built up in the ziploc bag, so we just drained it out. However, you can't get it all out. I think that laying the bag on it's back and letting the squash freeze spread out will help it not to freeze into a solid squash cube. So the second time we did this we ended up squeezing the squash and then spread it out among the bag so it froze in a single layer. It turned out a whole lot better. It was a whole lot easier to defrost and protected it more from freezer burn. Make sure to get as much air out of the ziploc bag as possible or you can vacuum seal it.
Shredded Zucchini
Now we're doing shredded Zucchini for Zucchini Bread. It's a lot simpler because you don't have to blanch it. In all honesty I'm not sure why probably because it's mainly used in baking. I tried to find info on it and came up empty handed, but I know it turns out fine (shrugs).
Here's what you'll need:
- Cheese shredder
- Large bowl
- Quart sized ziploc bags
So for this you want to clean the squash like above. You ideally want to use small zucchini like usual but if you have large ones. Cut them down the middle length wise and then scoop all of the seeds out with a spoon.
Go ahead and shred the zucchini with a cheese shredder by hand or electric. I didn't have an electric one so I did it by hand, yuck! You will quickly find out when dealing with squash that when you cut them they bleed and it gets everywhere! It sticks on everything especially your hands and when your hands dry they become "tight" like you spilled glue all over them. The only way to get this off is by literally scrubbing it off. I used my fruit scrubber it was just a pain. So if you don't want this to happen wear gloves!
Then, this is optional, you can wring any additional moisture out before you pack them in ziploc bags. Some people like the additional moisture in their zucchini bread but I found after wringing it out that my bread was still moist enough. Plus veggies that have more moisture when frozen can have more freezer burn. I was shocked at how much liquid came out of the zucchini you can see it just dripping off as my husband wrings it. Crazy!
Pack your bags with the amount of zucchini your bread recipe calls for. Mine calls for two cups. This way you won't have to measure it out or come up short or have to much. Then seal out as much air as possible. You can also use a vacuum sealer if you have one. Then I spread it thin in the bag to freeze. It turned out great!
There you have it you now can enjoy your favorite squash year round! Which has already come in handy! Come back next week while I share two of my favorite squash recipe's so you can now use your newly frozen squash! Happy canning!
