Freezing summer's goodness

Did you buy a little more corn than you can eat this week? Or maybe your coworkers are bringing in the fruits from their tomato vines? "Put it up" for winter!

Corn: to prepare sweet corn for the freezer: use a serrated knife to saw down the edges of a corn cob (stand the corn on end). Gather the golden nuggets into a air tight container (Tupperware, freezer proof canning jar, etc). The kernels will be wonderful for soup later - especially a crab-corn chowder!



Tomatoes: If the skins don't care to come off, score the bottom with an "x":

Plunge them into boiling water for just one minute. Pull them out with a slotted spoon, and wait five minutes so you don't burn your fingers. But then it will be easy to peel away the peel.

Some tomatoes don't seem to require blanching (the minute in boiling water)

Don't look now! Naked tomato!!

Chop the tomato and pack tightly in a plastic container (leave head room for expansion). Obviously you won't be able to use the thawed tomatoes for a perfect summer burger in the dead of winter, but they are healthy addition to stew or soup in February.

Blueberry Season!

Yesterday I bought ten pounds of blueberries. WHY, you might ask would anyone want ten pounds of blueberries? Well because blueberries are the freshest and most economical in Pennsylvania in late June and early July. So I washed the berries, picked out the stems and the few little green ones (NO ONE wants to eat that bitter bite), and put them in three cup containers in my freezer.


Once I filled all my little containers I still had about a cup and a half of berries left - breakfast!! A wonderful start to a Monday morning for the resident Southerner and I - just in a bowl with cantelope and raspberries.


All winter I'll be able to make blueberry crisps (place blueberries in a casserole dish, cover with a mixture of melted butter, brown sugar and old fashioned oats. bake until hot and bubbly. Serve with ice cream or whipped cream); baked blueberry oatmeal, blueberry pancakes (or better yet REGULAR pancakes, layered with plain yogurt, with a lightly sweetened blueberry topping); and of course blueberry pies!


I actually used up the last of the 2007 blueberries just a few weeks ago, making a pie for Father's Day. I used the Joy of Cooking blueberry pie recipe, but reduced the sugar a little and added both vanilla extract and grated orange peel to the blueberry filling:


Preheat oven to 425.

(directions say: "Make flaky pastry dough, page 859"), but I just opened the box marked "pie crusts", and unrolled one of the pastry rolls into a 9" glass pie pan.


Then I mixed gently in a large bowl:


5 cups blueberries (I think I used closer to 6 cups)

1/2 cup sugar (recipe calls for 3/4 - 1 cup)

3 T cornstarch

2 T dried orange peel (if you are going to omit this, add a squirt of lemon juice)

1/2 teaspoon salt

a splash of vanilla extract


Spoon this mixture into the pie crust. Cover with the other crust, crimp the edges, and use a paring knift to vent the top crust.

Bake for 30 minutes, reduce heat to 350, and bake another 25 - 35 minutes.