Freezing the 2015 Carrot Crop

Once the harvest was over and the carrots were scrubbed clean, we began to think about how we were going to consume all these carrots.  If I recall correctly, it seems like there was a Brady Bunch episode I watched as a kid in which one of the Brady girls ate so many carrots she turned orange.  I don't want to turn orange or red or purple.  We eat a lot of them raw, we give away some to friends, family and neighbors, and we blanch and freeze some to enjoy throughout the year.

Here's how we blanch them.  First we cut them into cubes using a nifty gadget Tricia bought.  It saves a lot of time and energy and is much better than cutting them up with a knife.  A couple of the carrots below have odd shapes, like a leg and a purple pair of pants.  Stay tuned tomorrow.  I'll show you some more.  Anyway, we simply put the carrots on the blade and pull down on the lever.

Chop! Chop!

In no time at all the container beneath it fills with chopped up carrots ready to blanch.

Ready to blanch

When we were done, we had lots of carrots to put in the freezer.

Yesterday I mentioned how pretty the red carrots are.  Below you can see the red carrots in contrast to the orange ones.

Blanching is simple, but every vegetable has different blanching times and it depends on whether you are blanching them whole or cut up as to the blanching time.  Blanching halts the enzyme action that breaks down a food's color, flavor, and nutritional value.  We figured out that cut up carrots take about 1 minute and 30 seconds to blanch.  

When the water comes to a rolling boil, pour the carrots in, wait for the water to return to a boil, and then set a timer for a minute and thirty seconds.

When the timer goes off, we use a big slotted spoon to remove the carrots and place them in a sink full of ice and water.  This shocks them and immediately stops the cooking process.

We let them sit in the cold water bath for the same amount of time that they were on the stove top OR until they are cold to the touch.

Then I remove them and shake them to remove excess water.

I use a slotted spoon to fill quart sized bags with the blanched carrots and then I seal them.  Then we start the process all over again.  It took us about an hour to process all of our carrots the other night.

When we were done, we had 19 quarts of cut up, blanched carrots, ready to add to stews, make souffle, add to chicken pot pies, or eat as a side dish with plenty of butter!  Carrots are full of carotene.  Our body converts carotene into Vitamin A and Vitamin A contributes to healthy skin, the strength of our immune system, and good vision.

19 Quarts of Cut Up Carrots

We've also got some still growing out in the garden that we'll harvest in a week or two.  Maybe we'll make some carrot cake!