Ken Knecht wrote:
> Why is blanching suggested for food to be frozen? For example, I looked
> up celery in a book on freezing stuff I have and it tells me to blasnch
> the celery for three minutes before freezing. Cool off, then bag and
> freeze. What does the blanching do? What would happen if I didn't bother
> to? Anyone know?
>
Short answer is, just because. We have found in experimenting with our
home garden harvest that a number of things don't need the suggested
blanching. Peppers and tomatoes and snowpeas and zucchini, for
example. Things we do blanch usually do better with shorter times than
traditionally suggested, at least for us. Green beans, for example, we
blanch for 30 seconds, then ice bath, then drain and dry. -aem