Preservation Secret: Freezing Tomatoes and Bananas

Extended Shelf Life for: Tomatoes

When holidays with the family come to end, it's inevitably time to start diving again ^^

Fortunately, there's always a wealth of ingredients to be had and we've been at it for so long that I've developed a few tricks of the trade and preservation secrets.

For Tomatoes:

I love to roast my tomatoes for about 20-30 minutes at about 400 F. When you take them out of the oven the skins are easy to remove and a lot of the unnecessary, seedy liquid has drained from them. At this point, I run them through a food processor or our juicer (on the mincing cycle), bag them and freeze them. I'm increasingly passionate about this process and method, especially after reading that even farmers won't eat canned tomatoes because the acid and the tin can are not a healthy combination!

For the Bananas:

I'm working on preserving some (the peels primarily) in the form of vinegar. However, this is about freezing, and bananas are easy to freeze. I've done two-three different things for freezing bananas.

If I plan to make banana bread, pancakes or any other mashed banana treat I simply mash the banana in a large mixing bowl then transfer to freezer bags, each containing about 2 cups of banana mash, the generally required amount for recipes of such sort.

I've also frozen banana 'coins' so that I can easily make banana ice-cream which goes fantastically well with banana (n)ice cream sandwiches!

And finally, I'll occasionally peel the banana and freeze whole to use in smoothies, although making coins would work just as well.

Cranberry Salsa

Extended Shelf Life for: Red Onion, Lime Juice, Jalapeno

A teacher at the school I work at prepared this unique salsa just before the holiday's and I knew immediate that I needed to prepare a batch and take it to our family Thanksgiving celebration. It's sweet, it's spicy and it features cranberries, can a holiday dish get any better? Yes! Because you also get to have tortilla chips at your holiday table, and who doesn't love some tortilla chips and salsa?

Ingredients/Directions:

Run one package of fresh cranberries through a food processor or the mincing component of a high-quality juicer. In a medium bowl mix minced cranberries and 1/2 cup sugar. Mix in 1 drained can of Crushed Pineapple, 1 diced Jalapeno (or 1 thawed jalapeno cube if your a preserver/freezer), 2 Tbsp. Lime Juice (again, if you have frozen cubes, this is a great time to use them!), 1/2 cup chopped Red Onion and 1/2 tsp. Salt. Let set for two hours or overnight and enjoy with your favorite tortilla chips!

Tip: If you have leftovers (since it's a pretty big batch), AND you're in need of a quick lunch, make up a quick batch of brown rice (or quinoa, pasta, etc.) mix in a few large spoonfuls and you'll have a delicious and relatively nutritious lunch!

Preservation Secret: Frozen Avocados

Extended Shelf Life for: Avocados

Did you know...you can freeze avocados and use them later?

You sure can! Thanks to Pinterest, I learned this lesson. Thanks to dumpster diving we had an abundance of avocados for me to give this preservation secret a shot. My avocados are definitely in worse shape than what other avocado preservers are likely to freeze, however, the process is the same.

Halve you avocado.

Remove the seed.

Scoop out the pulp.

Wrap in plastic wrap.

Place in freezer bag.

Freeze.

Use for breads, brownies or, if your avocados are relatively pretty when you freeze them, you can even make guacamole!

Repeat: Strawberry Freezer Jam

In my early salvaging days I threw a batch of this together. It's quite possibly the most delicious jam I've ever had and it's SO simple to make. Just do it!

 Ingredients:

4 cups hulled Strawberries
4 cups Sugar
1/2 tsp. finely shredded lemon peel
1 7.5 oz. package of regular powdered fruit pectin
3/4 cups water

Directions:
Use a potato masher to crush the berries until there is about 2 cups of pulp. Add sugar and lemon peel, let stand for 10 minutes. Prepare fruit pectin in pan by boiling for 1 minute, stirring constantly. Add to berry mixture; stir for three minutes when mixture is no longer grainy. Ladle into half pint freezer containers, let stand for 24 hours before placing in the freezer for up to a year.

Almond and Garbanzo Bean Dip

I'd have called this a non-tahini Hummus, but it seems as though Hummus requires tahini, so I'm opting to call this a Garbanzo Bean Dip ^^

It's that season of life when I realize that my pantries are well stalked and while I don't mind giving away our food when we leave this season, I'd like to take advantage of as much of it as I can and that means soaking and slow-cooking a LOT of beans! Which would be awesome for soups and stews were it winter...

But it's not.

So, the beans keep finding themselves in my food processor and in a Ziploc Tupperware container with a bag of chips serving as a light, yet delicious and nutritious lunch. 

For this dip I threw some Garbanzo beans, Almonds, Olive oil and Basil with Olive Oil 'ice cubes' into the food processor - a touch of water (or was it wine...) to help achieve the correct consistency and wam, bam, thank you ma'm we have ourselves a bean dip!

Peanut Butter and Chocolate Banana (n)Ice Cream Pie

Remember the Banana (n)Ice Cream sandwiches?

Well this is basically the same idea...but in Pie form.

Graham Cracker Crust - or Oreos or Nilla Wafers, anything would do.

Banana (n)Ice Cream with Peanut Butter blended in.

Banana (n)Ice Cream with Coco Powder blended in.

Crust, Peanut Butter Layer, Coco Layer = P.B. Chocolate Banana (n)Ice Cream Pie!

Keep in the freezer, let set at room temp about 20 minutes before serving for easy slicing and forking^^

Banana (n)Ice Cream Sandwiches

If you spend any time in the blogosphere or on Pinterest, you've likely seen something like this post on Banana "Ice Cream" or single-ingredient ice cream etc. You may even read some posts and discover that some people are now eating ice cream for breakfast...

How magical.

(BTW, I'm posting this weeks later, but want to note that this morning, I had a smoothie...a Pineapple Pie smoothie to be exact ^^ - I think ice cream for breakfast, whether with bananas or not is an acceptable choice)

Anyway, I decided to get in on this Banana Ice Cream action and take it up a notch by placing the mix between a couple of graham cracker like cookies.

Throw those babies in the freezer and I'm coming home for work, desperate to be cool and have a little afternoon snack. I grab one of these ice cream sandwiches and EVERY-TIME, I'm thinking to myself "I should not eat an ice cream sandwich everyday...BUT WAIT, it's not ice cream! It's banana! This is friggin' awesomeeeee!!!!!!!!!!"

Really, every time.

I've done banana plus peanut butter on chocolate lined 'cookies' (really they are graham crackers, but Korean style Digets)

I've also done banana plus watermelon slush cubes.

Both are delicious and refreshing.

Just slice up some bananas, throw in the freezer for a while.

Put them to a food processor, get on them until they turn creamy which will happen after a kind of 'gravelly' texture when the banana melts just a smidgen.

Watermelon Slush Cubes

A not-so-recent-river-side-picnic resulted in my returning home with half a watermelon filled with home-made watermelon sorbet - I'm guessing the original recipe was something like this one.

Unfortunately, it was no small task to break out some that watermelon sorbet, so it sat in our freezer a little longer than I'd like to admit.

Then, I had an idea.

Ice Cubes.

Because they are easy and accessible.

So, during a Sunday of cooking/baking adventures, I pulled out the melon and let it thaw.

Scooped it into the blender, added a touch of pineapple juice and then poured into some ice trays.

Now, I can have the occasional hard cider (homemade by the hubs) with the nice taste of watermelon added to the mix. Or, I can throw a couple into a smoothie or even some (n)ice cream sandwiches (more on those later).

So, yeah, it was a good idea and now that watermelon sorbet is being put to use!

Chickpea Spinach Pasta

Over a month ago...many months ago in fact, I did a bit of 'once-a-month-cooking', knowing full well I wouldn't use it all up in a month because my life is busy, but not that busy and I just have too many ideas flooding my foodie brain to do all my cooking in one day. Regardless, having things like home-made tomato sauce just waiting for me in the freezer is quite awesome and I'm quite happy on the nights I don't feel like cooking nor walking to any food establishment, that there's something waiting to be prepared quickly and easily.

So, with a CouchSurfing Guest at home and a desire to feed him well while taking time to chat and enjoy his company I figured a quick boil of some pasta along with the defrost of some frozen chickpeas (since we can't get canned one here and it's easier to prepare many at once rather than a few at a time) and my home-made tomato sauce we'd soon have ourselves and enjoyable and hearty meal.

In a large skillet, saute an onion and garlic, add chickpeas, heat through. Next, add a few handfuls of washed and chopped spinach until wilted, dump in two cups of tomato sauce, heat through and mix in pasta , fresh basil and mozzerella cheese, enjoy!

Herb Cubes

Saw this on Pinterest.

Chopping fresh herbs.

Throwing them into ice cube trays.

Adding water, oil or butter.

I've done similar with pestos and food-processed roasted green chilis.

I love the freezer. And Pinterest. And fresh herbs.

Freezable Cilantro Pesto

During our dumpster diving days, I came across numerous ways to make the most of 'abundance'. One fabulous idea was to create simple 'pestos' of fresh herbs, spoon them into ice-cube trays and save for later. One herb is notorious for going a little wilty before one can get full use out of in, Cilantro. In addition, cilantro is not a highly prized herb in South Korea and requires a bit of planning to acquire, so it is with everything in me that I want to make this delicious herb last as long as possible and be available for many and all future cilantro-desiring-dishes.

Following a productive Google search, I had this recipe ready for trial in 519 Kitchen and within moments had my nearly-wilty Cilantro ready to go into the freezer.

Ingredients/Directions:

Wash and chop 1 Bunch of Cilantro (majority of stems removed). Add to a small fry pan 3 Tbsp. Olive Oil, 8 cloves Garlic finely minced or made into a semi-paste with a food processor and Cilantro, saute 2-3 minutes until aromatic and deliciously tempting. Use immediately or spoon into ice cube tray and cover with a bit of olive oil before freezing cubes for later use in soups, dips, curries, etc.

P.S. This recipe is endorsed by Lady Annyeong (the dog seen in the bottom left hand corner of the photo collage ^.^).