How to Freeze Kale: A Step by Step Guide

Want to know How Do Peanuts Grow? Let’s explore the ins and outs of how to cultivate these wonder nuts – from planting to harvesting!

Cleaning up a school garden after a prolonged absence or period of neglect can seem like an overwhelming task, particularly now as schools are working out how to reopen safely. Although it seems the world has changed in many ways, school gardens still offer students hands-on, experiential learning opportunities that cannot be found inside four walls. Perhaps now more than ever, it’s important to give children the chance to explore in a garden and to offer spaces for outdoor learning. Here are a few tips for creating a safe and positive garden environment, even if you haven’t been able to work in your school garden in awhile.

Freeze drying is a method of food dehydration that has been primarily used in commercial food manufacturing but is starting to make its way into home kitchens.

SO MANY GREEN BEANS, so little time. That’s how I always feel around now: how to keep up with the glut of one of my favorite vegetables. I don’t like them canned (all olive green and overcooked!) and they can lose crunch or get ice-encrusted when blanched and frozen plain, so I put mine up in canning jars in the freezer, doused in homemade tomato sauce. Read how I freeze green beans and many more garden-fresh goodies.

QUICK: BEFORE THEY’RE GONE for another year: Pack up the flavor and juiciness of peaches for offseason use (and while you’re prepping those peaches, turn a bowlful into an easy, elegant peach clafoutis–my favorite dessert of all):Farm-Fresh Peaches, Frozen to Perfection Packing a harvest of summer’s juiciest flavor for the long haul: a how-to. Clafoutis Batter, Universal Solvent of Fruit Desserts: Learn to make this easy batter that turns fresh, dried or frozen fruit into a dramatic dessert.

GET OUT YOUR FOOD PROCESSOR and get creative. You can simply puree virtually any green herb (from chives to parsley, basil, oregano, cilantro, arugula, sage, and even garlic scapes when in season) in an olive-oil base. Some cooks add garlic and/or nuts and grated cheese now; some think the mixture doesn’t store as well with the extra ingredients. Freeze the thick mixture as cubes, knocked out into doubled freezer bags with all the air expressed. More onmaking herb pestos.freeze herbs as ice cubesTHIS METHOD MIGHT BE preferable when an oil base doesn’t suit, such as for lemon balm or other mints (or with other green herbs that might be used in a non-olive oil recipe later).  Easy: wash herbs, pat dry and remove from stems. Chop if needed, or simply press into ice cube trays and drizzle a little water over to fill, so a cube will form when frozen. You can also process the herbs with a little water as the base, as in the oil version above, and then make cubes. When ready, pop cubes out into freezer bags.freezing rosemary, thyme or baySOME HERBS ARE EASIEST to

Dr. Elizabeth Andress, is a Professor and Extension Food Safety Specialist at the University of Georgia, and oversees my go-to reference website about all matters of putting up food sanely and safely: It’s called The National Center for Home Food Preservation. We hope to inspire you to plant extra and make this the year you enjoy the fruits of your garden labors all through the offseason–whether canned or dried or frozen. Read along as you listen to the Feb. 27, 2107 edition of my public-radio show and podcast using the player below. You can subscribe to all future editions on iTunes or Stitcher (and browse my archive of podcasts here).getting ready to preserve the harvest

In 2008, when I was shifting my life from city-dwelling corporate executive to rural dweller, I met Alana Chernila. We aren’t close in age—she’s was at that time a mother to two young girls—but I recognized in her right away some common essential elements.The natural world was the anchor we were both intentionally gravitating back to—and we each were obsessed with having a well-stocked freezer and pantry (or else!). We were also both brewing books. Alana’s “The Homemade Pantry: 101 Foods You Can

“I’m mad for woodpeckers,” I wrote, and Stephen Shunk wrote back: “Mad for woodpeckers is a very good thing.”I suspect if you are not already, that by the end of this story and podcast, you’ll be mad for them, too, and positively amazed at their physical capabilities an

Another day that year, my friend Katrina filled the back of her car with my apples, heading home to cook them up, and many neighbors have been the recipients of boxes of apples, apples and more apples, too. It’s applesauce time, and here’s how that goes:Bountiful rains put regional 2013 apple crops—including fruit on my handful of ancient trees that I do not spray (that’s a 40-foot-wide one out back, above)—at bumper levels. The 2015 season didn’t feature much rain, but the apples were crazy-plentiful, after a 2014 when I had almost none. In 2016, almost a total bust, after a non-winter and a very dry whole year. Neighbors with old trees had none, either; I bought sev

ingredients:olive oil for sautéing 1 large head of garlic, whole cloves peeled 3 chopped quarts of plum tomatoes fresh basil, chiffonaded (as much or little as you like) generous handful of fresh parsley, chopped (salt and pepper to taste, if desired) steps: Sauté all the peeled whole cloves from one head of garlic slowly in olive oil till they are really soft and almost caramelized. I leave the cover on the pan, and use low heat so they don’t get crispy (later, the cloves will sort of melt into the sauce).To the soft garlic, add a mixing bowl full of choppe

Freezing cucumbers doesn’t always come to mind as an option to preserve your abundance, but it’s actually quite easy and useful.