✴ frozen dinners

We have just about finished eating the homegrown produce from last year that I squirreled away in the freezer. It's so great to be eating runner beans in January that were harvested last August! 

This year I managed to successfully freeze courgettes, runner beans, turnips and blackberries {picked abundantly from nearby woodland walks}. The small and pretty purple skinned turnips harvested in October were a delight as 'tatties and neeps' for a new years dinner. 

I blanched most things before freezing and more information on that can be found here. 

The blackberries I just washed then laid them out onto trays to open freeze in the freezer before then popping them into freezer bags. Open freezing them first helps avoid them sticking together in the bag.

Berries freeze brilliantly. I often buy raspberries when on offer in the supermarket and freeze the excess. They work very well in muffin, cake and pancake batters, just add them to the mix while still frozen and bake as as usual. I have one last bag of blackberries in the freezer which I think will make a lovely sunday crumble to shut out the cold and miserable rain that seems to be darkening our days at the moment. Bbbrrrr......