Freezing Your Fruits

Freezing fruit is so very simple.

It doesn't require much hands on time.

Most people think of canning when putting food up for later, but freezing takes so much less time.

When freezing berries, all you need to do is stem them, wash them, lay out flat on a cookie sheet and into the freezer for a couple hours. Take out of freezer and put the berries in freezer bags or containers. Freezing them separately first will ensure that the fruit won't freeze together in one big clump.

For hard fruits such as peaches or apples, you will need to peel and remove the stone or core them. Next, slice them and lay them out as with the berries or just stick in bags  or containers. Hard fruits don't clump so bad that you can't separate them, but they still will stick together some.

Rhubarb you just cut up, bag and freeze.

Next is bananas. These are the easiest of all. When they are overly brown and great for baking, you can stick them in a plastic bag and put them in the freezer. Don't peel them. It works great and the banana taste is fantastic. When you want to bake with them, thaw them out and snip off an end. Just squish the banana out.

Another great one is zucchini. It grows on a vine so technically it is a fruit and yes, you can freeze it. Just shred it, freezer bag it and into the freezer it goes.

The most time consuming is the pumpkin. Lots of prople can it, but I freeze mine. You have to steam or bake the pumpkin soft and puree it smooth. Put it in freezer containers in the amounts you will need and freeze.

Freezing takes next to no time, no special equipment, and preserves more nutrients than canning.

I highly recommend it.