Freezer Hints

One of my favorite things to do is freeze food: especially vegetables. I use celery in cooking, but a full bunch of celery will go bad in my fridge before it gets used. I bought celery on sale the other day at Albertsons: 10 for $10. I chopped up every bunch of celery, very fine, and put it in freezer bags. I flatten the bags as I lay them in my freezer. Once they are frozen, I can just go in and break off pieces of celery. You can thaw them for about 30 seconds in the microwave if you want, or they can be added to your dish as is.

I do the same thing for onions and carrots. Not having to chop something is a big time saver. And, if they are flat and thin, breaking off chunks is easy.

And, while I always have an onion or two on hand, I usually chop up an entire bag at one time. If I'm going to cry and smell like onion, I might as well do it all at once.

I use a mixture of celery, onion and carrots in several of my recipes. We call it the Holy Trinity of cooking. Having it all already chopped up saves so much time while cooking.

I also do this for bacon. I use bacon in my cooking, and so I'll buy 2 or 3 packages of bacon at once, while it's on sale. I chop it into pieces and then cook it all. After I drain it, I put it in freezer bags and freeze. When I need some bacon, I can just pull out what I need and put the rest back. Again, not having to fry up some bacon is a real time saver.

You can use a foodsaver, which I recommend for the bacon, but for the veggies, I've found that freezer bags work just as well. If a little ice develops on them, it hasn't affected the flavor.

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