Measure Free Hippie Cook

It’s Putting Up Time

22 August 2007 by Jean Johnson

My friend Denise brought me a golden winter squash that looks like a large zucchini. Since her family has both zuchs and pumpkins growing in their garden, we suspect that it got cross-pollinated. I’ve had similar mongrels from my own squash patch in past years and found them to be acceptable enough when baked. But more on this later in the fall when the idea of turning on our ovens appeals.

Right now it’s harvest, and my approach is jamming the season’s abundance as unfussily as I can into the freezer for later on. It works for zucchinis, tomatoes, chard, snap beans, and most everything in between.

If you garden like so many of us in Portland, Oregon do, you know that the zucchinis have been coming on strong for some time and the tomatoes have moved beyond a polite few soldiers ripening on the window sill to hoards of red plumpers maurading around the kitchen. Even if you don’t garden, you’ll see this abundance reflected in prices at farmer’s markets and groceries everywhere. So if you buy extra now and put a little up for winter, you’ll be doing your food budget a favor.

The question is how to take advantage of this surplus even as you work your full time job, keep up with family and friends, and pet the cat. Sigh. Once again, no free lunch. I do have some tips on how to streamline things though. Since as usual, I have to be in and out of the kitchen pronto.

The short answer is freeze whole when you can. That is what I do with tomatoes. Stick those babies in a ziplock–or even any old bag with a twist tie since I’ll be using them within 4-5 months. When they thaw I just squish them up in whatever soup or stew I’m flash cooking. At this point it’s easy to slip the skins off if you want to and core the ones that need it.

On zucchinis and chard and green beans, the method is the same except they need a little heat before going into the freezer. Here’s where I depart from business as usual: Instead of blanching in big kettle of boiling water that heats up the kitchen so–and into which nutrients leak from the cut ends of the veggies, I flash cook.

At essence flashing vegetables for the freezer goes like this:

1. turn that burner on full blast

2. put on the biggest, heaviest pan or skillet or wok you have (see note)

3. add the veggies with enough splashes of water to keep things moist

4. keep things moving with a big wooden spoon until the skins have darken some

5. cool and bag up for the freezer

Think about what you’ll be using the food for when you chop it and bag it. With snap beans, for example, I like them bite-sized in soups so I sat out on the deck and did that sort of prep work. Also when I bag them, I leave plenty of room and lay them flat while they are hardening. That way come time to use, I can take out just as many as I need without unthawing the entire bag.

On the other hand, when it comes to zucchinis and other summer squashes that are just going to end up in rather dissolved states in my winter stews, anything goes. I just hack those babies up willy nilly–small enough to get them bagged in some reasonable fashion.

Same same with the chard that I leave whole. Come winter when I use it to make Flagstaff Arizona Veggie Burgers–a recipe I will be sharing sooner or later, the thawed greens go onto the chopping board for the full treatment.

Note on Cast Iron Woks: On your choice of pans, my first pick by far is a cast iron wok. (I bought mine at a camping store for under $20 two years ago.) The advantage of the wok, as Chinese peasants have known for centuries, is that it holds such high heat that it cooks food beautifully and fast.

I admit that at first I did not like mine because it is too heavy to pick up with one hand. But once I learned how to dish from it without lifting it off the burner everything changed.

Now my wok sits day in day out on the back burner. Only rarely do I even ave take it to the sink for a rinse since most times a quick swipe of the cloth primes it for the next go-round.

So in addition to being a great vehicle in which to flash cook (a technique I differentiate from stir fry because it does not use oil or an Asian palate of vegetables and flavors) a cast iron wok saves you from having pots and pans to scrub. Sounds good? I do think you will be pleased if you get one. I know it has done wonders for my experience in the kitchen–both on the cooking and the clean-up end.

Be forewarned, though, since iron rusts, the woks come in thin coats of paraffin that you have to melt off by putting them in a low oven on a rimmed baking tray. This sounds harder than it is. Simply leaving the wok in the oven for a couple hours, periodically taking a rag to it to sop up with paraffin does the trick.

Then it is just a matter of seasoning your new piece by rubbing it with oil and leaving it in the low oven for another couple hours. Bingo.

But if all this wok stuff sounds like to much, do not fret. Just use your regular pots and pans. As Bart Simpson might say, ‘It’s like, wow mon, whatever works.’

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