GARDENING : Act Fast to Freeze Veggies at Home

Harvest time also means freezer time for many gardeners. This can be frustrating until we accept the fact that only a few vegetables, such as peas, seem born to freeze well.

Others, such as string beans, never really make it. Resigning ourselves to this, we can still look for freezing methods that work best.

One error easy to make is to pick the best of our vegetables for fresh eating and assign to the freezer the ones that are past their prime or otherwise inferior. But no miracles will happen in there; garbage in, garbage out, as they say in the computer world.

You’ve got to reserve some of the young and tender--the quality--for freezing.

Limas have long been considered the best vegetable to freeze and string beans the worst. Other shelled beans, such kidney beans and soys, also do well, as do shelled peas.

Generally, the more watery the vegetable, the poorer the freezing.

Cauliflower and Brussels sprouts preserve both taste and firmness but broccoli, with its more delicate texture, tends to get mushy.

Some gardeners have had good results in putting corn straight out of the garden into the freezer, husk and all, even though conventional wisdom prescribes prior blanching in boiling water for most vegetables. Peppers, sliced up and with the seeds removed, have also done well without blanching.

Of course, individuals are not going to match high velocity air blast processes and 40 below Fahrenheit temperatures of the professional freezers, but Linda Eatherton, the Kraft General Foods director of communications, suggests speed in freezing is also the key step in the home.

To achieve this, Eatherton said, you should leave bagging until after the vegetables are frozen on trays. The steps are:

* Blanch the vegetables for the prescribed time in boiling water.

* Drain and immerse immediately in ice water.

* Drain and dry with paper toweling.

* Place on cookie trays and put immediately in freezer.

* After they’re frozen, store them in plastic bags or containers and put them back in the freezer.

If you bag them before they’re frozen, “it seals in heat and moisture and does not allow them to freeze as quickly,” Eatherton said.

In blanching, begin timing as soon as you put your vegetables in the water, even though that might stop the boiling momentarily. The process aims at stopping the enzyme action involved in ripening vegetables. It also helps keep the green color.

In the search for best taste, people differ on ways to cook frozen vegetables. Some say steaming is best. Others say microwaving. In any case, much depends on whether the vegetable is one, such as peas, that takes to freezing in the first place.