This week for Bountiful Baskets, I got celery. Normally, I just cut it into sticks for my kids to eat, but with Thanksgiving coming up, I need celery for bread and celery dressing. Since I never know what I will get week to week from Bountiful Baskets, I decided it would be best to freeze this celery to have ready for Thanksgiving. Celery doesn’t seem like a vegetable that can be frozen, but it can. After you freeze it, it’s not going to be ready for a veggie tray once you thaw it, but you can use it for cooking, like in soups or dressing.
First, you want to wash and slice up your celery. Then, you need to blanch it. To blanch it, you boil water, then add the celery and allow it to boil for 3 minutes. Drain. Then, put in a bowl of ice water for 3 minutes. Drain. Store in vacuum sealed bags or zipper bags with the air let out. To get the air out of a zipper bag, zip the bag leaving one end slightly open, then insert a straw in the opening. Suck out as much air as you can. Label with the date, and put in freezer until you are ready to use it. I measured mine out into 1 cup portions and placed in snack size zipper bags.
Blanching is a process done with quite a few vegetables. Last year, I did it for a bunch of green beans I had gotten.
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