So I went at it with the scissors, cutting only one or two stalks at a time so I made certain I was getting the nice leaves (some were way past their prime), and none that looked too chewed up by bugs (not too many actually) or that looked like they were new growth. I wanted to leave enough on the plants...
Even after whacking away at them for awhile, filling up my largest colandar, the plants were still looking pretty darn leafy. Here's what I hauled into the house (please notice the bananas next to the pile for reference/scale):
Nothing gives me more joy than when I bring something in from the garden and have Brett say "Oh shit - what are you going to do with that?!"
Seriously - it was a massive pile!
And after I cut all the stems off, chopped them, cleaned and blanched them for three minutes, and then did the same with all the leaves for a two minute blanching, here's all I had to show for it:
That's actually just over five pounds of swiss chard that went in the freezer - so not too bad, eh? I don't know why I separated the stems and stalks this time.... I guess it'll give me more options this winter?
5 comments:
you are freezing it all together? what do you do if you just want a little bit? and what would you do with the stalks separate from the leaves?
It's easy enough to break off chunks of stuff - and when I put it in the freezer I made sure to sort of squeeze some perforation lines into the veggies in the bags, making sure there were "break here" lines.
And I wondered if maybe I weren't making a beans-and-greens kind of italian soup, maybe I'd want just the chard leaves but not lots of stalks? I dunno. Most likely if I'm doing a big pressure cooker of beef and veggie soup, I'll just bust in some of the stalks and some of the leaves?
I figure if I freeze up another batch before frost kills the plants, I'll just do a bag of everything mixed together.
I have now added this to my "To Do When Summer is Officially Over" list.
:)
Oh I agree - that's how I figure I'll be scrapping the plants this year - doing one more mass harvesting of whatever's salvageable from them.
You will, of course, find some way to slip some to Brett in his food without him realizing it, right?
;-)
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