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Freezing Porcini Mushrooms: You Should Pay Attention to This

If you freeze porcini mushrooms, you can make them last much longer. We explain how it works and what you should consider before buying or collecting the mushrooms.

Freezing porcini mushrooms: You should pay attention to this

If you want to freeze porcini mushrooms, they should be fresh. When you buy porcini mushrooms, an organic seal guarantees you organic cultivation that is free of chemical-synthetic pesticides. With your purchase you can also support regional suppliers, such as the farm or organic market in your area.

If you are looking for porcini mushrooms in the forest, you should note that mushroom picking is strictly forbidden in nature reserves. In other forests you are usually allowed to collect for your own use, but find out about it beforehand.

Freezing porcini mushrooms: this is how you do it

If you want to freeze porcini mushrooms, the mushrooms should be in an unprocessed state if possible. This way you can keep them for up to 12 more months by freezing them. We explain in three steps how to freeze raw porcini mushrooms:

Clean mushrooms: First, carefully clean the porcini mushrooms with a cloth or brush. Don’t wash the mushrooms with water at this point, because that way they will go mushy very quickly.
Cut the mushrooms into small pieces: Use a paring knife to remove the stem ends of the porcini mushrooms. Now cut the mushrooms into small pieces. Halve, quarter or slice the mushrooms.
Freezing: Put the porcini mushrooms in an empty screw-top jar and freeze the mushrooms at around minus eighteen degrees.

To use the porcini mushrooms for various mushroom dishes, you can heat the porcini mushrooms while they are frozen. If you let them thaw for a long time, they lose their firm consistency.

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Freezing Coffee Beans – Lazy Compromise or Useful Trick?

True coffee connoisseurs only drink their coffee from freshly ground beans. If your favorite coffee is on sale, you would like to grab it without limits and secure a large supply. If it weren’t for the fear that the valuable aromas could evaporate if it was stored in the kitchen cupboard for a long time and the delicious coffee would only taste bland.

In general, it is always advisable to use fresh coffee beans as soon as possible. Nothing beats the full flavor of freshly roasted beans. However, if it is not possible to always get your beans fresh and in small portions, you have to store them.

Freezing larger amounts of coffee beans seems a good alternative. This is to preserve the aromas and give the coffee its full, fine taste even after it has been stored for a long time.

However, opinions differ on this topic. True advocates of freshly ground coffee call freezing coffee beans a vice because they don’t want the taste to be the same after thawing.

If you decide to freeze for practical reasons, it’s important to make sure the beans are frozen in an airtight container so that no moisture can get in. Even after removing the beans from the freezer, they should first be completely thawed to room temperature before they are removed from the packaging, otherwise condensation will form. Since roasted coffee beans contain hardly any moisture that freezes when they freeze, you can alternatively put them directly into the coffee grinder.

A problem when storing large quantities in the freezer is the need-based removal of portions. Every time the beans are taken out, they are exposed to temperature fluctuations, which damages them in the long run. Therefore, if possible, only freeze in portion size.

Although freshly roasted coffee is always preferable to stored coffee, if it is stored correctly, good quality coffee can be obtained, even over a long period of time. With or without freezing, coffee beans should be kept dry, airtight and stored in the dark. It is best to leave them in their original packaging to avoid loss of flavor when decanting. With the packaging, you can then store the beans in a ceramic jar or other airtight and lightproof container.

But since fresh coffee still tastes best, you should only buy as much coffee as you can use within a week. During this time, the beans stay fresh even with normal storage, without losing their aroma.

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Freezing Chanterelles: This is How You Preserve the Mushrooms

If you freeze fresh chanterelles, you can keep them for a few months. In this article you will learn how this works.

Chanterelles are in season from the end of June to September: If you know what you’re doing, you can pick lots of delicious mushrooms on a walk in the forest. You’ll often find more than you can eat in one meal. You can freeze the chanterelles to keep them from going bad. With just a few moves, the mushrooms stay fresh and you can extend the chanterelle season.

Tip: Often chanterelles from the region are offered at the weekly market. Worth buying here and freezing them for fall and winter.

Freezing chanterelles: How to prepare the mushrooms

To prepare the chanterelles for freezing:

Thoroughly brush the chanterelles with a small brush.
Wash them off very gently.
Cut out bad spots with a small knife.
Blanch the chanterelles in salted water for a few minutes. This way they don’t taste bitter after defrosting.
Scoop the mushrooms out of the water with a spoon and gently dry them with a towel.
Let them dry a bit before you freeze them.

How to freeze chanterelles

You can easily freeze chanterelles in just a few steps:

Arrange the mushrooms on a board or tray.
Then place this in the freezer.
Take the board out again after about half an hour. Now the chanterelles are “pre-frozen” – so they won’t stick together when you freeze them afterwards.
Now fill the mushrooms in a freezer container and store them in the freezer.
Tip: Don’t use plastic bags to freeze the chanterelles. Instead, you can use, for example, freezer-proof glasses, cans or cotton bags.

Mushrooms that you collect yourself can stay in the freezer for up to ten months and still taste good. Mushrooms from the supermarket, on the other hand, lose their taste more quickly.

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Freezing Spinach: This is How It Stays Fresh

You want to freeze spinach because you had a good harvest? Or do you have leftover fresh spinach and want to preserve it? Find out here how it works and what you should consider when freezing.

Freeze spinach: Here’s how

Spinach is a healthy, regional vegetable. So it’s no wonder he’s so popular. Fresh spinach is especially delicious. If you have bought too much of it or your harvest has been very rich, you can freeze it without any problems.

How to freeze spinach correctly:

Wash the spinach and remove the stalks. These taste mainly bitter and are also not very pleasant when you bite them.
Briefly blanch the spinach. Blanched it is easier to freeze, and because you only heat it briefly, most of the nutrients are preserved.
To do this, add the spinach in portions to boiling water and let it cook for a few seconds.
Immediately afterward, place in a bowl of ice water to pause the cooking process.
Spin it dry in a salad spinner. It is important that the spinach is completely dry, otherwise too much liquid will collect due to the ice crystals when defrosting. You can also press the spinach dry between tea towels. Make sure, however, that it is not exposed to room temperature for too long. Because then nitrite can form in the spinach.
If the spinach is dry, you can freeze it in glass or stainless steel containers.
Tip: Depending on how you want to use the spinach, you can also cut it up or finely chop it before freezing.

You can also freeze spinach raw. However, the spinach should be as fresh as possible and you should clean it well so that no dirt or bacteria are thawed again later.

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Freezing Tomatoes: How It Works and What You Have to Consider

Tomatoes can be frozen, but they lose their flavor in the process. You can read here what you should pay attention to and when it makes sense to freeze tomatoes.

Freezing tomatoes: Only good quality, please

Tomatoes are wonderfully aromatic and a real treat in summer. If you have too many tomatoes, you can freeze them so they don’t break. Here, however, it is important that the tomatoes are not soft and have no rotten spots or bruises. You should also remove the green stalk.

Of course, it only makes sense to freeze tomatoes if you really can’t process them fresh. Because when they freeze, they lose their aroma – after defrosting, you can no longer eat them raw, for example in a salad, but should cook them. It is ideal if you process them into a tomato sauce, for example.

Three ways to freeze tomatoes

You now have several options for freezing tomatoes:

fresh and freeze whole
Freeze cut into small pieces
pureed (and seasoned) and freeze as a sauce
tomatoes in one piece

If you freeze the tomatoes whole, you should remove the skin first. During the freezing process, the water in the fruit expands and the tomato can burst. You can easily remove the skin by blanching the tomatoes briefly and then carefully peeling off the skin. (More info: Peeling and skinning tomatoes: easily with a simple trick)
Place the round tomatoes, which are still whole, on a small baking sheet or similar surface (e.g. cutting board) and place in the freezer.
As soon as they are frozen, take out the pads and put the tomatoes in a cotton bag, for example, and put them back in the freezer.
Sliced ​​Tomatoes

For the diced version, you don’t need to skin the tomatoes because slicing them gives them room to expand.
Dice the tomatoes, remove the core and place in a mason jar.
After the small pieces of tomato have thawed, they are particularly good for pizza toppings or sauces that you don’t want to have a completely smooth puree.
Pureed tomatoes

The easiest way to freeze tomatoes is to freeze them already pureed and ideally seasoned.
For example, you can use the plastic-free method with ice cube trays.
In addition, if it has to be quick, you have a ready-made tomato sauce immediately.
So prepare the tomatoes according to your favorite recipe, let them cool and then freeze them. Alternatively, you can cook them without spices and freeze them.

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Freezing Celery: Raw or Cooked

Freezing celery is a good way to preserve leftover vegetables. But should you freeze it raw or cooked? More about this here.

Celery is a versatile vegetable that you can use in a variety of ways in the kitchen. Especially with celeriac, there are often leftovers because the tubers are very large. You can freeze leftovers like this. We explain what you should pay attention to.

Freeze celery: how it works

You can freeze celeriac raw or cooked very well. To freeze it raw, proceed as follows:

Peel the celery. It is best to cut the peel half a centimeter thick with a sharp knife.
Slice the celery and further into sticks or cubes depending on your taste and later use. You decide how coarse or fine you cut it – depending on what you want to use it for later.
You can now freeze the chopped celery in portions in glasses or storage containers made of glass or stainless steel. How to avoid plastic. For more ways to freeze food without plastic, check out this article: Freezing Food Without Plastic: 5 Tips
If you wish, you can also cook the prepared celery before freezing. Then all you have to do is heat it up after defrosting. After cooking, allow the cooked celery to cool completely. Then you can freeze it in portions just like the raw celery.

Raw celery can be frozen for up to six months, cooked celery just three.

Special case celery

Unlike celeriac, you should always blanch celery sticks before freezing. This makes it last about six times as long. Thats how it works:

Clean the celery: Cut off the stalk and leaves and remove the threads. Then you wash the vegetables.
Cut the celery into the desired shape and size.
Put a large pot of boiling water on and prepare a large bowl of ice water.
Add the celery to the boiling water and let it cook for 3 to 4 minutes.
Then scare him in ice water.
Drain the celery thoroughly and let it dry completely. Then freeze it in portions as described above.
Blanched celery can be stored frozen for up to a year. If you freeze it raw, it will only keep for two months.

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Food

Tips for Freezing Cookies

Why should you freeze cookies?

  • Too few biscuits were eaten at the Christmas party.
  • Too many cookies have been baked.

With a few tips and tricks, it is possible to freeze the leftover biscuits (Christmas biscuit recipes) and after a few weeks or months without much loss of taste Cookies don’t freeze as firmly, and some varieties are delicious straight out of the freezer (e.g. Machine Bakery). Due to the low water content, biscuits thaw quickly (e.g. vanilla crescents).

Proper packaging when freezing

You can use different materials as long as they can be closed as tightly as possible and are easy to clean. It is important that they do not give off any flavor to the frozen food.

Fresh storage containers that are airtight, watertight, aroma-tight, and dishwasher-safe are suitable for the Christmas biscuits. They must not break or become brittle in severe cold and must also close tightly when frozen. Most cans are suitable for temperatures down to -20 degrees and since they can be stacked well, the available storage space in the freezer can be optimally used.

To prevent freezer burn, seal the packs as tightly as possible. Vacuum sealing and sealing freezer bags is ideal for avoiding freezer burn. Careful knotting with a plastic clip or a rubber ring and avoiding air pockets are important, as the oxygen contained there slows down the freezing process and leads to a loss of quality. Basically, biscuits freeze faster in the freezer bag because the thin material lets the cold through faster and also adapts optimally to the frozen goods.

Do not leave any air in the freezer bag!

By the way: Freezer burn is not dangerous or harmful to your health.

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Freezing Currants: This is How They Taste Best

As soon as they are ripe in summer, you can freeze currants in advance. That way you can still have some of the delicious fruit for the rest of the year.

Red, black or white currants grow in many gardens. Among other things, they contain a lot of vitamin C and, with their sour taste, are a great ingredient in sweet pastries. You can just as well use them to make jam or jelly, or add them to your muesli in the morning. Like the other berries, currants are sensitive. Therefore, you should process or freeze them within a few days of picking them.

Cook currants

How to cook the currants for freezing:

Discard unripe or mushy fruit.
Wash the berries. Make sure the water pressure is not too high, as the currants are delicate.
Dry the berries.
Now remove the berries from the panicles. If you do this before washing, the berries will leak juice through the resulting cracks in the skin. You can easily scrape the berries from the panicles with a fork.
Remove any remaining stalks.

Pre-freeze currants

Pre-freeze the berries so that you can thaw them individually later. To do this, place the currants not too close together on a large plate or tray and place it in the freezer for one to two hours. If you don’t have enough space for this, you can also freeze the berries in a jar and shake them carefully after an hour so that they separate.

After pre-freezing, you can put the currants in a freezer box (preferably made of glass) and freeze it. The fruits will keep for up to 12 months.

Defrost currants

Slowly thaw the berries before using them. So they lose little aroma. This works best if you first let the berries thaw in the refrigerator and then thaw them completely at room temperature.

Defrosting the currants will make them a little mushy. You can then no longer use them as well as decoration, for example for cakes. But they are still good for:

Compote, currant jam and currant jelly
currant syrup
Currant cake, in which the berries are baked in the batter
muesli or porridge
milkshakes or smoothies
fruit sauces

Alternative: Freeze currant puree

You can also process the currants into a puree with a little powdered sugar or agave syrup before freezing and freeze it without pre-freezing. Small molds are particularly suitable for this. This way you can defrost the puree in portions.

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Freezing Basil: This is How You Preserve the Herb

You can freeze basil well and make it last longer, for example if you have harvested too much of it. Find out here what you should consider.

Basil is used both in the kitchen and as a medicinal herb. The nutrient-rich and aromatic leaves give numerous dishes a typical aroma. To have basil on hand all year round, you can freeze it. We’ll tell you how this works best.

Freezing fresh basil: This is how it works

If you want to freeze the basil leaves in their actual form, you should blanch them. That way they won’t be mushy after defrosting. For this you need:

ice cubes
a bowl
a cooking pot
water
a clean kitchen towel
a plate
a container for freezing
In order for the basil to retain its aroma when you freeze it, you must first blanch it. Proceed as follows:

Cut the leaves off the plant. Preferably directly above the leaf node, where more leaves grow, because this allows new ones to grow back.
wash the leaves
Place the ice cubes in the bowl.
Boil water in a saucepan. Make sure the pot is big enough for all the basil leaves.
Blanch the basil leaves in hot water for about 5 to 10 seconds. This means: Dip the leaves in the boiling water for five to ten seconds at a time, preferably with a slotted spoon.
Then, as quickly as possible, dip each leaf into the ice water.
Then place the basil leaves individually on a clean kitchen towel and let them dry for about ten minutes.
Place the individual basil leaves on a plate. Make sure the leaves are really individual on the plate so they don’t stick together when frozen.
Place the plate in the freezer until the leaves are completely frozen.
Now you can put them together in a sealable container, such as a lunch box or an empty screw-top jar.
Put these in the freezer.

How to freeze pureed basil

You can also freeze basil pureed and use it later for cooking. How it works:

Remove the stems from the basil leaves.
Rinse the leaves under cold water.
Drain the basil well and then gently pat dry.
Once the leaves have dried, place them in a food processor or blender.
Chop the basil depending on how coarse you want the leaves to be.
Add some olive oil as you go.
Once the basil leaves have reached the desired consistency, place them in a sealable container.
Basil can be stored in the freezer for several months.

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Freezing Potatoes: What Speaks for and What Against

Freeze potatoes? That’s the first thought when you’ve cooked too many potatoes again. But it’s not that easy to freeze potatoes.

Freeze raw potatoes?

Unfortunately, raw potatoes are not suitable for freezing. The low temperatures in the freezer turn starch into sugar – so the potatoes would taste much sweeter. This is not harmful to health, but the taste is very unusual. In addition, freezing destroys the cell structure. As a result, potatoes will look glassy and mushy after thawing.

Freeze boiled potatoes

In principle, however, you can freeze boiled potatoes: peeled, whole or in small pieces, you can use them after defrosting to make soup or mashed potatoes. Nevertheless, the consistency changes even when cooked, so you should really only freeze potatoes in an emergency.

However, the situation is different if you freeze the potatoes in their processed state: you can freeze potato soup and mashed potatoes without any problems, without the taste or consistency changing.

By the way, bought fries and croquettes keep so well in the freezer because they have been shock-frozen.

Instead of freezing: store potatoes properly

Freezing potatoes helps prevent potential food waste, but it’s not recommended. Because the freezer consumes a lot of energy and if the potatoes are not processed into mashed potatoes or potato soup, the consistency also suffers. If you want to preserve potatoes for a long time, a dry, cool and dark environment is ideal – for example the cellar. You can store potatoes there for months.

If you don’t have a basement or similar place for the potatoes, you should only buy small quantities. In vegetable and organic shops, potatoes are sold individually and not just in a large kilo sack. This is a much more effective way of preventing food waste.

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