Whether we grow our own veggies or receive too much in our CSA or scramble to the farm market to get the last of our favorite produce before the end of the season, sometimes we end up with too much. Freezing is a great way to keep the goodness of seasons past on hand and ready for a meal. But just throwing most vegetables into the freezer isn't the best route to ensuring that today's harvest tastes fresh a few months from now.

I've acknowledged that my freezer overflows with homemade foods and preserved produce and bits of things (butter wrappers for greasing pans, ends of bread for making breadcrumbs, and all the leafy, scrappy ends of things I save for stock). About once a week, I look in the fridge and figure out what's just not going to make it onto our plates in time, and then I get a pot of water boiling.

I use my biggest pot.

This pot happens to have a strainer component, which is helpful but absolutely not necessary.

If your pot doesn't have a strainer - and really, whose does? - just be prepared to use a slotted spoon later on.

I turn the heat on to get the water boiling and then I prep my veg.

I'm really not one to boil vegetables, so what's going on here? Yes, I'm going to drop these nice fresh, crisp veg into boiling water, but I'm not going to cook the heck out of them and end up with something mushy and grey, I'm just blanching them to stop them from ripening.

The freezer isn't magic. So you've got veg, let's say it's a carrot, and it's firm and crisp and wonderful, but if you wait too long, the same enzymes that caused it to ripen and turn into a delicious carrot will keep going with their ripening until they've gone too far. You've seen it happen in your fridge. Yesterday's bright, crunchy carrot turns soft and flexible and dark. Yuck. Just freezing most vegetables doesn't stop the enzymatic ripening process, and freezing doesn't kill all of the bacteria. So, gross things can happen, even in the freezer. Since we want out veg to be fresh and wonderful when we pull them out next week or next month, we blanch the veg first. Blanching is just about boiling briefly, then chilling immediately.

Today I have carrots, kale, and spinach to freeze. The spinach just needed a good washing.

The kale gets de-stemmed and washed.

The carrots get scrubbed and cut into rough sticks. I don't peel my carrots, but this is the time, if you're going to. Of course, you can cut them into whatever shape you like, but carrot rounds remind me too much of canned carrots, so I just avoid that shape. These sticks will work nicely in a stir fry.

When the water is boiling, we're ready to go. This is when I think about the order of things. Sure, you can use fresh water for each vegetable, but I don't. Instead I think about how the veg will affect each other. I'm going to do greens first and then carrots, because if the carrots get infused with a bit of the goodness from the greens, that's no problem, but I might not want any of the sweetness of the carrots to leech out into my greens. This probably isn't a thing, but it's something I think about. Of course, if you're dealing allergies or strong preferences in your house, you'll want to separate your veg accordingly.

I dropped the kale into boiling water.



Then waited for a few seconds to be sure the water had come back up to a boil, and then set the stop watch. You only want the kale in there for two minutes. This is true of all greens, except collards, which need an extra minute.

This is the time to prep your chill bowl. Cold water and ice, enough to cover your veg when they come out of the pot.



When my two minutes are up, I pull the strainer basket up out of the pot. If you don't have a basket, use a slotted spoon to remove the veg.



And drop the kale right into the ice water.



The kale need to chill in the ice water for at least as long as they boiled (2 minutes).

Then I drain it - well - squeezing and such.

And into a zipper bag. Squeeze the air out well, and use a plastic straw if you have one handy.

I like to use masking tape and a Sharpie to label them. That way when you're reusing your bag you don't have to cross out whatever was in the bag last.

The spinach is done the same exact way. Boil 2 minutes, drain, ice for 2 minutes, bag and freeze.

I gave the carrots a minute longer. There is science to this (and actually, the science says just two minutes on the carrots, but I cut mine pretty big).

Veg like this keep a good 6-9 months in the freezer, and after that they don't spoil but they lose some of their flavor.

How do you know how long to blanch your veg for freezing? The Internet is your friend. The National Center for Home Preservation provides guidance on blanching and freezing, canning, drying, smoking and more. If there's a vegetable you're itching to freeze that isn't listed, just Google "blanching rutabega" and you'll get the appropriate time from something like Colorado State University Extension Center or New Mexico State University. Lots of schools have great info on preservation.

My most common veg are:

• Greens - 2 minutes

 

• Corn on the cob - 9 minutes

 

• Eggplant - 4 minutes

 

• Green beans - 3 minutes

You'll find tables with more veg at the links above.

Just remember, as much time as they spend in the boiling water, they should spend the same on ice before you drain them and pack them up.

A few tips that should be obvious, but I've messed them both up in the past.

• Label your veg. You don't want to think you're pulling out spinach one day and find out after the first bite that it's actually mustard greens.

 

• Freeze them in the quantities you're going to want them in once they're defrosted. No, you're not going to successfully break off half a block of frozen carrots. The advanced technique, which I do when I have bigger quantities, is to blanch, drain, and then lay out on a cookie sheet (lined with parchment or silicone) in the freezer. Then, once each piece is frozen, drop them in a bag or other storage device. That way you can get at just some of them, like how your supermarket veg are frozen.

 

• Of course, if you use your freshest veg, they'll be more delightful when you defrost them.  But this is how I clean out my fridge.

Happy Freezing!

This is cross-posted at Saturday’s Mouse, where I’m working on making food out of food. 

Our good friends at the Kensington Community Food Co-op got a great piece featured about themselves on PlanPhilly.org's "Eyes on the Street" blog. Kensington is well on their way to getting the member base they'll need to open up their store. In the meantime, they've made the campaign for high quality, healthy, sustainably produced food into an exciting development of their neighborhood. And since Kensington's Brian Baughan put it so well in the piece, I think I'll just share his thoughts on how the co-op will benefit their neighborhood:

How can our collective efforts benefit Kensington? A cooperative grocery store would be a sign of our community’s self-reliance and proof that neighborhood development is possible without big-government assistance or mega-chain investments. It would mean we can help drive the local economy and connect liked-minded businesses (we already have a Shop Local through which members get discounts for patronizing local businesses). Just as important, it would mean we can enjoy the simple pleasures that go with buying and eating fresh food at a neighborhood store.

I really like that part about neighborhood development! So when it comes to why a Co-op will be good for South Philly, today I'm just going to say... what Brian said! Have a good weekend everyone! Or... have a great weekend and become one of our 250 Founding Members. Click here to join!

This month we started a new series called "Meet a Member Owner".  You'll hear more about why your neighbors decided to join us.

 

Editor's note: Sarah submitted this on Thursday before the temperatures dropped through the floor and we got that great pre-Halloween snow. We hope her fall crops are doing better than ours!

I kind of knew that when I said that last week's harvest was the last I'd be eating my words...look at these beautiful tomatoes!

The tomatoes are still going out there.  I'm loathe to trash tomato plants that still have lots of tomatoes on them but I also need to free up some sun space for my kale and chard, so I picked the tomatoes from the plants that only had one or two fruits on them and threw them out but left the ones with more fruit on them because I just couldn't get rid of all of them yet.  I love all the different colors of the tomatoes!

But I think I cleared out enough space, so here's what my sunny corner looks like now:

On the left side of the photo you can see all the tomatoes still growing...those are the ones I just couldn't bear to part with.  I left the scraggly-looking plant in the center of the picture because it has lots of tomatoes on it (and they are not as red as they seem in this picture) - as soon as I pick those that one will be gone, too.   This picture also shows my two figs:  the taller one is still kind of yellow but the smaller one is doing great.  Lots of figs on it:

I haven't decided yet if I'm going to put this fig (the non-yellow one) in the ground for winter or bring it inside.  We'll see!

I also pulled out all the sunflowers along my back fence (I left them for the birds and little creatures to take the seeds and they took every single one!)  Man, I could have used a saw for that - these sunflower stems were tough!  I ended up either breaking them over my knee or holding them at an angle and stepping on them to break them - I wasn't strong enough to break them with just my arm strength.  When they finally broke they snapped with a very satisfying pop, though, and that was fun.

I planted some things in the ground where the sunflowers had been (my raised bed):  a little rosemary plant I had inside and an heirloom strawberry plant.  I'm excited about the strawberry - it's from Bartram's Garden!  I heard that someone from Bartram's Garden would be at the Clark Park Farmer's Market (Thursdays 3-7 and Saturdays 10-2) with native plants from there to sell, so last Thursday I headed over after work.  I was hoping to get some raspberry plants and the ones they had were big and awesome but maybe not so great for carrying home on the trolley...but for $5 they had little strawberry plants and I've been wanting a strawberry for a long time so I grabbed one.  I still got weird looks for carrying a plant on the trolley but at least I wasn't in danger of scratching someone with a thorny raspberry plant (but it should be noted they had thornless black raspberries, too.  They were all just too big for me to carry on the trolley.)  Oh!  Here's little strawberry and rosemary in their new home:

Lastly, here's some kale enjoying its new sunny spot:

My backyard definitely gets less sun now than it was getting in the summer but hopefully it's still enough.  I find it crazy that things are still growing...fall is such a nice season when it stays warm through October!

Sarah DeGiorgis has lived in Philly for five years and is finally starting to feel like a true Philadelphian, though she still detests cheesesteaks.  She enjoys reading, watching bad tv, eating and cooking good food and digging in the dirt. Catch up with her continuing efforts to grow food in South Philly by clicking here.

Alison and I are currently taking advantage of an invitation from the good folks at Weaver's Way to attend their fall general membership meeting. So far we've been treated to some great vegan chili and salad. We're looking forward to some fun activities ranging from co-op quizzo to an apple tasting (good thing I studied for this by doing Cassie Plummer's apple identification game). Here are some pictures from the meeting so far:

The Co-op's existing member-owners are by far the most important and effective salespeople for attracting new members and helping us get to our short-term goal of 250 Founding members. The success of the venture will depend on your efforts to bring in new members. And sometimes all we need is a little help with what to say. At our member meeting on October 17, Stephanie and I gave a little presentation on "How to Talk About the Co-op." I've already recapped perhaps the answer to one of our most important questions. Here I'll share the complete presentation. Take what you want. Leave out what you don't want. It's all up to you. And remember, each new member you bring in earns you a volunteer hour and gets us that much closer to 250. How to talk about Co-op Starting the conversation Often, the most difficult part of talking about the Co-op is figuring out how to bring it up in the course of a normal conversation. This doesn't have to be so. Anything that brings the subject to food is a possible starting point for talking about the Co-op. Someone mentions getting things from a local farmers market. Did you hear about the South Philly Food Co-op, it's a member-owned grocery store that could make farmers market-quality produce available all week long. A friend complains that they can't find a good non-dairy cheese substitute at the local chain supermarket. The South Philly Food Co-op will carry items suggested by its members, which means if people want the high-quality vegan and vegetarian foods, they can buy it there. There are countless ways to start the conversation even if it's just the simple, "Have you heard about the South Philly Food Co-op" that we so often use when tabling at events. Once the conversation starts, however, then you have to be ready to answer some of the most frequently asked questions. The good thing is that there are very few facts, if any, that need to memorized. Answering questions about the Co-op includes a lot of variations of "That's the great thing about a Co-op… the answer to that question will be determined by the members!" Let's go through a few of the most common questions and go over the main points you might want to hit when answering them. What is a co-op? Very simple. A co-op is a type of business that is equally owned by its members, whether they be the makers of the products or the customers. In our case, we are looking to open a member (or cooperatively) owned grocery store that will be owned by its customers, who will all have an equal stake in the business. This differs from most businesses that you're used to in that the owner of the store is a person or limited group of people who make all the decisions about the store or a corporate model that is owned by stockholders who can buy as much of a piece of the business as they want for the sole purpose of receiving a piece of the profit and managed by a CEO and others who make the decisions. In the case of the Co-op, day-to-day businesses decisions will be made by the store management but the bigger picture issues will be decided by the members either by direct vote or through the decisions of the board, who themselves are member-owners. Most importantly, no ONE household or member has any more power or decision-making authority than any other, whether they have been a member for a day or a decade. Why would I join now instead of waiting until you have a store? An excellent question and one that can be answered pretty simply. Joining now is the best way to get the Co-op opened soon. So if this is something you're really interested in and would like to see happen in the next couple years, join now AND ask some friends and neighbors if they would like to join. The location for the Co-op will also be determined, in part, by where most of the members live at the time of the location decision. So one way to make sure the the Co-op is close to you is to become a member AND get everyone on your street to become a member too. What benefits are there to joining? There are plenty of monetary benefits through our shop South Philly program which will be launching soon. Membership also includes decision-making power to influence the initial location, direction and policies of the Co-op. And eventually, members will be entitled to exclusive specials, sales and events. But the benefit to joining now is much bigger. It's the knowledge that YOU are a Founding Member. You are making possible what we all hope will be an institution in this neighborhood for decades. Not all of us have time to do "something big" or to make a difference in the community, but by becoming a member now, you WILL be making a difference and that's something to feel good about. Will I get my money back if I move or if you don't open? The Board and the various committees are working EXTREMELY hard to make sure that costs associated with the planning phase of the Co-op are covered as much as possible by money raised through events like the Garden Tour and happy hours. The goal is that any money paid as member-owner equity goes directly to actual start-up costs like renting or buying a store, hiring management and staff and acquiring inventory. You can trust that the Board, who are all member-owners themselves with the same stake as you, will be good stewards of your money and take their fiduciary responsibilities very seriously. Once the store is open, member-owners who move or want to cease being a part of the co-op are entitled to all or part of their equity depending on the liquidity of the store at that time. Where will the co-op be located? If you ever get this question, welcome to the club! This is perhaps the most frequently asked question we get. And for a lot of people, the answer I'm about to suggest just won't be good enough. Those are the folks who are waiting for a location to be determined before they decide whether or not to buy in. Don't be discouraged by them… in fact consider them a stockpile of potential member-owners who will flood our ranks when we DO get a location. But, for those who are just curious and are so interested in the Co-op that they would consider joining before we choose a location, here goes… Location will be determined by a number of factors, the most important of which is where most of our members live. So the best way to influence that decision is to become a member and get all of your neighbors to join as well. Other factors will be determined by a comprehensive and professional analysis of the market and a feasibility study that will tell us what kind of space and traffic we need to have the best chance for success. This is simply too big a decision to be made based on a "feeling" or a romantic attachment to a building. We're not interested in starting something that is going to fail so we're going to approach the location decision in the most business-savvy way possible. Finally, depending on your audience, you may ask them whether they have heard of Weaver's Way in Mt. Airy or Mariposa in West Philadelphia. Whether they have or not, you can absolutely promise that the South Philly Food Co-op will be closer to them than either of those co-ops. What kind of products will the Co-op offer? Another very frequently asked question for which the best answer ultimately is… it depends. I know… seems kind of cagey, right? But that's the truth. One of the great things about a co-op is that the member-owners help determine the product mix. If the membership shows a preference for all locally grown produce or beef and pork from locally and responsibly raised cows and pigs, that's what the Co-op will carry. The members, through their board representatives, set the policies that will govern the types of products that are available. So really, you can answer this question with a question… "What would you want to see the Co-op offer?" Is this just another expensive health food store? Yep… it's possible that everything you've described about the Co-op puts the picture in your audience's mind of a store full of nuts, seeds and grasses. So how to answer this question… I happen to like ice cream. I like cookies. I like candy. (You see where I'm going… I have a bit of a sweet tooth.) As a member-owner I'm going to want to see those products on the shelves. Of course, probably not talking about products from large corporations, otherwise why wouldn't you just go to the local supermarket chain. So while everything in the store won't necessary be "healthy" you'll at least know how it was made, who made it and where it came from. $200 seems like a lot of money... The economy is down. We get that. We want it to be as easy as possible for people to become members but we also want it to mean something to them when they do. So that means having "skin in the game." But we also understand that not everyone can fork over $200 at one time. So for a minimum of $25, anyone can become a member owner and take up to 26 months to make installments to get up to $200. It's this easy: join now for $25. Pay off the rest of your first $100 by the end of the current year then pay off the next $100 by December 31st of the following year. And that's it. No more obligations. Sure, you can take part in any member loan campaigns we might do to raise funds but your $200 member equity gives you all the rights and privileges enjoyed by every other member-owner. Do I have to volunteer to work at the store? (usually comes from people who know something about co-ops) People who know something about co-ops might ask this question. It's true that some co-ops have done away with their volunteer requirements but the South Philly Food Co-op board felt that having some token requirement of volunteer service would help strengthen the community-building aspect of the Co-op. So the answer is "Yes. But it's not as bad as you think it is." Each member-owner household is required to do 8 hours of volunteer work for the Co-op. That means if there are 4 people in your household, you could, in theory, each do 2 hours to cover the requirement. And there are several ways to fulfill these requirements, even ways to do them from home. We're not basing the feasibility of this business on the free labor of volunteers. We just want member-owners to get to know the Co-op and each other better by participating in the running of the store. You might actually have fun. So there are some ways to handle some of the most frequently asked questions that we get about the Co-op. In the end, however, the reason why someone will choose to become a part of this movement is unique to them. We each have our own reason, whether it's for the food, for the community building, for the economic model or for the strengthening of our food system. Your reason will be what you are most comfortable talking about… so go with it. Something convinced YOU to become a member. Who's to say that same thing won't help you convince someone else. So go… sign up a new member or five. Get us to the 250 and beyond. And let us know what works for you so we can share it with others.

Well I think this is about it for the tomatoes!  Here's my last harvest:

These were a little more mealy than my earlier tomatoes and I picked some a bit early because I was afraid of colder temperatures later in the week.  So I made them into tomato sauce!  After years of fiddling with sauce from fresh tomatoes (for some reason canned tomatoes are easier to make in to sauce for me - they have less of that bite that I love so much in fresh tomatoes but not so much in my tomato sauce) I think I have figured out the secret to good fresh tomato sauce.  Here's my non-recipe:

First you need to skin your tomatoes, otherwise you'll have little pieces of tomato skin floating around in your sauce - obviously I've made this mistake before.  The easiest way to skin tomatoes is to parboil.  Just bring a big pot of water to a boil, cut a little X at the bottom of each tomato and submerge in the boiling water for a few seconds or until you can see the skin starting to loosen.  Then fish them out (there's probably a kitchen utensil for this but a large spoon does the trick for me) and throw them all in a large bowl of cold water to stop them from cooking.  Some people use ice water but I just use cold tap water because ice is too fancy for me.  Also you're going to be cooking these in a minute anyway so I don't think it's the worst thing in the world if they don't entirely stop cooking.  Then I just run the tomatoes under cold water while I peel the skins off and then roughly chop them - these were pretty small anyway so I cut them into quarters, making sure to get rid of the tough stem-end.  I don't take out the seeds - I like the flavor and the extra water means you don't have to add any extra liquid when cooking the sauce.

Then just heat a couple of tablespoons of olive oil in a large pan and add either some minced onion or garlic.  I had garlic this time so I used that, but onion or shallots work too.  For this amount of tomatoes (probably 4-5 cups chopped?  I never measure) I used four small garlic cloves.  You don't want so much that it tastes like garlic or onion, you just want to add a little of the flavor in the background.  Before the garlic burns (a common problem of mine) throw in all the tomatoes and stir it all around.  Then add some salt and black pepper and simmer uncovered for a long time - I give it an hour but more is always better.  It'll look pretty weak and watery for the first 20-30 minutes or so but then it'll start to thicken up and actually look like tomato sauce.  Then you need to add tomato paste - this is definitely the thing that elevates it from tasting like fresh tomatoes to something you would actually put on pasta.  I start with about a tablespoon, stir it in well, and then taste it a few minutes later and add more if needed.  This time I used about two tablespoons but I was also trying to use up my tomato paste that had been sitting in the fridge for a while.

Then I add soy sauce - just a little.  I usually under-salt things anyway so I add the soy sauce to help with that and also because I like the taste.  And then this time I did something that I would usually never do:  I added a few teaspoons of plain white sugar.  Weird, right?  But I had heard that it helped and it really did!  I was really afraid it would be too sweet but the tomatoes weren't all that sweet to begin with.  I think it was the sugar that really made this taste good and it kind of feels like cheating?  But it tasted good so I'm okay with that.

So by now this has been simmering for about an hour and a lot of the liquid should have cooked off, leaving you with a thickish, chunky tomato sauce.  I mash up some of the larger pieces of tomato with my wooden spoon but I don't like it entirely smooth - though if you did you could certainly blend it (carefully!) in your blender or use one of those fancy kitchen utensils called an immersion blender to blend it right in the pan.  Right at the end I roll up a few leaves of basil from the garden and chiffonade them (that's a fancy word for cutting them into long strips) and then stir them in.  And that's it!  It may seem like it takes a while but most of the time you're just letting it simmer so you can do lots of other stuff, like wash all the dishes you've dirtied and boil some pasta.

Making tomatoes into sauce is a good way to use up tomatoes that you may not want to eat fresh because of weird texture or cosmetic issues.  This sauce is very forgiving!

A quick note on the garden:  I still have lots of green tomatoes and some of the tomato plants are still flowering so I'm going to let them keep going until we get our first frost.  Kale and chard are coming along, too but still not quite big enough to pick.  Soon!  Oh and yellow fig lost a few leaves and is now looking less yellow.  Such a fussy one, that fig.

Alison, MaryBeth and I went to a Cooperative Board Leadership Development (CBLD) session on Saturday in Mt. Airy.  We are committed to learning more about what it means to be successful directors on YOUR board.

Michael Healy, an independent consultant from the CDS Consulting Co-op, spent all day with a group of 25 board members from six local co-ops to teach us about Cooperative principles and values, legal duties, policy governance and balance sheets!

Not only was the facilitator and content excellent, but it was great to spend time with other co-ops and bounce ideas around.  There were some people from start up co-ops like us (Doylestown, Kensington) and other established co-ops (Weaver's Way, Mariposa, Swarthmore).

 

The most important thing I learned on Saturday that I'd like to share with you is fiduciary responsibility.  I thought (along with many others) that fiduciary responsibility was a complicated finance term.  Turns out that it's much simpler - it means to be entrusted to make a decision on someone else's behalf.  As your Board of Directors, we know that you have invested your hard earned money into the co-op and we have a responsibility to act in your best interest. That's something that's not lost on me (us) and we thank you.

Through this learning process, something that really impresses me about the cooperative principles is that cooperatives help other cooperatives. Weaver's Way has been an invaluable resource to the South Philly Food Co-op and they are always willing to lend a helping hand. This Board Leadership program is an example of that, WW sponsored all three of us to attend for free.  My hope is that one day the South Philly Food Co-op will have a budget large enough to be able to give back to other start-up co-ops. There are approximately 300 start-ups that we are aware are and if we are successful, co-ops could double in our communities - how exciting!

Thanks again to everyone who came out last night for the first of our regular, bi-annual member-owner meetings. As member-owner myself and someone who has been helping out with these start-up activities since darn near the beginning (though I must admit, not as long as Alison or Cassie or Patty or Josh or John or MaryBeth or a number of other folks), it was GREAT to see so many people who believe in this enterprise. I had the great pleasure to give a little presentation on how to talk about the Co-op with friends and neighbors who might be open to joining. While I leaned pretty heavily on the psychological reward of being one of our 250 Founding Members, I forgot what is perhaps the most practical reason and best answer for the question "Why should I join now rather than just wait until the store opens?" Quite simply... if you join now, the Co-op will open sooner. Conversely, if you wait until it opens, it may be a loooooong wait. (Thanks to Josh Skaroff for reminding me of this message point!) So, if you're out there talking to a friend or neighbor and you get a sense that they are interested in being a part of this enterprise but give you the "Why now?" question... it's quite simple. Join now and the Co-op opens sooner. Thanks again to everyone who came. Let's review the numbers... We had about 70 people in attendance (and that's NOT including the Boy Scout troop whose meeting space we invaded for the evening... special thanks to them for being Quiet along with Trustworthy, Loyal, Helpful, Friendly, Courteous, Kind, Obedient, Cheerful, Thrifty, Brave, Clean, and Reverent.) Among these 70 people we had representation from 48 of our member-owner households who cast votes to ratify our by-laws (by a 48-0 vote). We signed up 5 (!) new member households to bring out total to 110. If I'm doing my math correctly that's 44 percent of the way to our first day of spring goal of 250. and... I ate 4 of the chocolate cupcakes and found them to be 110% delicious. Big thank you to everyone who earned a volunteer hour by bringing post-meeting snacks! And finally... if you really want a few more check out this blog post on Treehugger and the video below to find out directly from the Director-General of the International Co-operative Alliance why "the cooperative movement is gaining traction, and why it could be the fastest-growing enterprise model by the end of this decade." (Hint: it has a little to do with how strong the model is compared to some of the other *cough*corporate*cough* models which haven't performed so well recently.) [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96EOrGPJfk8]