The next step in my food preservation efforts was to blanch and freeze the bell and hot peppers. I have frozen peppers before, but never blanched them first. Again-the National Center on Home Food Preservation at www.uga.edu/nchfp is a great resource. According to the Center, "Blanching (scalding vegetables in boiling water or steam for a short time) is a must for almost all vegetables to be frozen. It stops enzyme actions which can cause loss of flavor, color and texture." Blanching can also clean vegetables so they preserve longer, helps to slow the loss of vitamins, and makes them easier to pack (slightly softer).
The website has a list of recommended blanching times, for bell peppers it was 2 minutes (when sliced into 1/2" wide slices). Blanching is easier than canning:
step 1_clean all veggies and cut to the size you want
step 2_boil water according to the amount of veggies going in. Use one gallon of water per pound of vegetables (this is easy to determine if you look at your grocery store receipt to see how many pounds you bought. I had about four pounds so I did four batches in a 1 gallon pot.
step 3_put all veggies in the boiling water. A good way to do this is to use a wire mesh basket and lower it into the water, this way you can quickly get all the veggies out when the time is up and put them in the ice bath. When you put veggies into the water the water should return to a boil within 1 minute (or you don't have enough water)
step 4_start counting the blanching time as soon as the water returns to a boil. "Blanching time is crucial and varies with the vegetable and size. Under blanching stimulates the activity of enzymes and is worse than no blanching. Over blanching causes loss of flavor, color, vitamins and minerals." (NCHFP website) list of blanching times here: http://www.uga.edu/nchfp/how/freeze/blanching.html
step 5_when blanching is done, quickly transfer veggies into an ice bath to stop the cooking.
step 6_lay veggies out on a towel to get the water out, this help them not stick together when frozen
step 7_put in jars, let sit for a few minutes and drain water. Leave at least 1/2" of head space (room between veggies and top of jar)
step 8_fruits and vegetables which are frozen can last 8-12 months at 0 degrees F
As for my other foods:
Potatoes:
I am storing my potatoes in a cool, dark corner of my closet. They should be put in a place that gets very little light and is well ventilated. Potatoes can be stored for 4 weeks in these conditions, if I were to store them longer they would need to be in kept at lower than 50 degrees F.
Onions and Apples:
Supposed to last for at least 2 weeks if kept dry and away from the sun. I am storing the apples in my fridge and the onions in a box in the cupboard. The trick with these guys is they aren't supposed to be stored together or they will expedite rotting. I'm hoping they last me four weeks...we'll see
A great resource for vegetable storing is here:
http://www.uga.edu/nchfp/how/store/wisc_vegetables.pdf
however, it is somewhat contradictory to other sources, such as this one (which include many packaged food storage times:
http://www.uga.edu/nchfp/how/store/ksu_cupboard.pdf
I found a good resource for drying foods at Straight From The Farm (apologies if I've shared this with you before.)
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