{"id":4757,"date":"2012-07-30T09:23:28","date_gmt":"2012-07-30T15:23:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dailyimprovisations.com\/?p=4757"},"modified":"2012-09-03T22:22:24","modified_gmt":"2012-09-04T04:22:24","slug":"the-broccoli-process-best-with-bugs-gone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailyimprovisations.com\/the-broccoli-process-best-with-bugs-gone\/","title":{"rendered":"The Broccoli Freezing Process Best With Bugs Gone"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sometimes one little change in methods can make a huge difference in outcome.<\/strong> \u00a0On arriving home from vacation, I was faced with a generous bushel of broccoli from my garden. \u00a0Doing the pre-freezing salt water soak by loads in the sink, or even a large mixing bowl, was going to take hours. \u00a0<\/em>I needed to get through the whole process in one day. \u00a0Fortunately, one of the 10 gallon plastic tubs that we had just unloaded vacation food stuffs from was fresh in my memory.<\/p>\n

The tub was filled with about 8 gallons of water, to which I added roughly 1.75 cups of cheap table salt.<\/strong> \u00a0Half of the broccoli fit in this super sized salt water bath. \u00a0My professional chef daughter, who loves to touch food, swished the broccoli around to get coverage on the top layer that tries to float<\/em>, while she laughed triumphantly at the unsuspecting earwigs. \u00a0We put the lid on and let it sit for at least 30 minutes, but not too much longer.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"soaking<\/a>
soaking broccoli in salt water to remove insects prior to freezing<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I had decided against doing the salt water soak in the real bathtub for logistical reasons. \u00a0Too far to carry things when I could just scoot the plastic tub a couple of feet to get it next to the kitchen sink. \u00a0Vacation had limited my application of insecticidal soap<\/a>, so there were aphids to try to wash off. \u00a0Some agitation in a sink of water, followed by spraying with the sink nozzle dislodged many of them. \u00a0<\/strong>Only a few cups of broccoli had to be donated to the 3 chickens<\/a>.<\/p>\n

When the first load of broccoli was all out of the tub, I looked at the water to decide if it could be recycled for the second batch. \u00a0My 16 year old daughter happened to be walking through the kitchen as I mused aloud about the insects floating on the top. \u00a0She suggested a wire mesh strainer with a coffee filter,<\/strong> and kindly agreed to perform the operation. \u00a0She used one coffee filter scooping up the insects, then switched to skimming the top of the water with the unlined mesh strainer. \u00a0The last of the broccoli was soaking in the salt water within a few minutes and the actual blanching and freezing process was going full swing by 10 AM. \u00a0Eight\u00a0hours later, I was putting the last of it in the freezer and dreaming of broccoli with cheese sauce all winter long.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sometimes one little change in methods can make a huge difference in outcome. \u00a0On arriving home from vacation, I was faced with a generous bushel of broccoli from my garden. \u00a0Doing the pre-freezing salt water soak by loads in the sink, or even a large mixing bowl, was going to take hours. \u00a0I needed to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18,3,19],"tags":[49],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyimprovisations.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4757"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyimprovisations.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyimprovisations.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyimprovisations.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyimprovisations.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4757"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyimprovisations.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4757\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyimprovisations.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyimprovisations.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyimprovisations.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}