Summertime - It's All About the Berries!!

Freezing strawberries preserves the tastes of summer for delicious berries to enjoy in smoothies or to add to baked goods all year long.

Because we have such a short window of time to enjoy fresh from the garden berries, I decided to keep on the strawberry theme again today.

My first round didn't seem to last long at all!! We had berries and whipped cream for dessert every night, I made a batch of freezer jam, used some in these delicious scones and froze the rest before they spoiled.

So that meant a trip back to the berry farm to load up on more!!

Batch Prep Work, Freezing Vegetables

With a small slot of time, do some batch prep work and have prepared and chopped veggies in the freezer just waiting to start that next pot of soup, stew or stir fry.

Judging from the drastic change in temperature from a couple of weeks ago, I think that fall is here to stay.  This is the time of year that Mother Nature really showcases her talent transforming all those leaves into bright gorgeous oranges, reds and yellows.  As much as I enjoy the fall colours, it creates a lot of work.  We live in an area with a tremendous amount of trees, so it is an ongoing job for the next 3 to 4 weeks of constant raking and cleaning of leaves.  And what better treat to warm up after a morning in these cool temps raking then to sit with a steaming bowl of homemade soup for lunch!

Freezing Cheese

You can take advantage of great sales on cheese and store in the freezer.  A few weeks ago, I took advantage of a great price on mozzarella cheese.  I'm all for trying to make our hard earned dollars go further with our grocery budget and having cheese available to work into recipes is so convenient.  The structure of the cheese does change somewhat with freezing so I do this with block cheese such as mozzarella and cheddar, particularly when I have purchased a store brand cheese.  And, no doubt, this cheese is going to be added to a cooked dish or melted, so little effect on it's behaviour will be noticed.

 I would steer away from this method when it comes to fine, aged, creamy or expensive cheeses. To enjoy every benefit those expensive cheeses offer,  store in the refrigerated section of the fridge as they will keep a very long time.

I wasn't ready to use up all this mozzarella just yet and of course, didn't want our hard earned dollars to turn into moldy cheese by just storing in the fridge.

I took each 500 gr. block, cut it in half and then shredded each 250 gr portion.

Each 250 gram block yielded approximately 2 1/2 cups of beautiful, ready to use shredded cheese.  A perfect amount to top a pizza or to add to a pasta dish.

This was then put into a zip lock bag labelled with the contents, amount and date.  The air was carefully squished out and they were ready to pop in the freezer.

The packages are flat and compact, taking up very little room in the freezer.  You can store for up to four months but I'm sure that this will all be gone by then.  When you are ready to use, remove a package from the freezer and defrost before using.