Thursday, December 1, 2011

Thursday's Kitchen Cupboard

I actually preserved something this week so have a post for Thursday's Kitchen Cupboard over at Robin's blog. I figured with the carrot fly damage I'd better get some of my carrots frozen since I wasn't sure how long they would store. So I thinned out the patch by about half and sliced them. It filled up my big colander.

Then I blanched them for a few minutes and tossed them in a bowl with ice water. Then came the decisions. I often freeze them on a cookie sheet and then put them in a ziplock bag to freeze. That way I can pick out however much I want. But I had a lot of carrots (and will have more) and they will last quite some time in the freezer.

So I elected to freeze them in batches and vacuum seal them. I haven't used my vacuum sealer I think since my Grand Canyon rafting trip in '99. My mom (our trip leader) asked me to dehydrate a lot of things and I vacuumed sealed it all in the portions we would be using. During the move I tried to give away things that I hadn't used in over a decade. That would have qualified, but I kept it thinking it might be useful again with a huge garden. I was right. Sadly it is very old and the middle wire which cuts the bags apart is not working all the time. But scissors worked OK. Two of the bags didn't seal right. I didn't redo them. I figured I'd just mark them and eat them first. So now I have 13 bags of carrots, all a cup each.

But I'll have more. There are lots of carrots still in that bed. I was going to leave them there and pick them slowly as I had plenty of them frozen now for when the ground froze solid. But there is starting to be more carrot fly damage. I think those that were in my carrots hatched and put out a new group of flies. The new damage is extensive on the surface, but it is only on the surface right now. Just peeling the carrots with one swipe of the peeler. removes it all. If I wait any longer it will become deeper and I'll lose most of the carrots. So I'm going to get the rest of them up and process them now. Any undamaged carrots will be stored but with over eight pounds of carrots in that first batch, only two carrots didn't show signs of damage. So I need to get them out of the ground immediately.

The weird thing about processing that many carrots is that my hands got stained. It doesn't show up well in that photo but my hand is really orange. I hope it wears off soon.

Addendum: I finally got all the carrots done. I have a few saved that had no carrot fly damage. Mostly ones that were small or short and stubby. The last of the carrots made 14 cups. Two were made into three cup batches which is good for a dinner party. And 8 were made into one cup containers for me. So now I have 21 single cup pouches. I'll probably use up about one a week. That will get me through April, which isn't too bad at all.

16 comments:

  1. Not too bad at all love the orange hands

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  2. I got that kind of staining when peeling butternut squash, as well as some contact dermatitis. Now I wear gloves when I peel them.

    It turns out the uncooked peel of butternut squash when cut releases something that has the same protein that's in latex.

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  3. Daphne, I'm really interested in your vacuum sealing machine. I wonder if you could see your way to publishing a photo of it? If I were to want to buy one, what would I need to look for?

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  4. You really had a great carrot harvest this year! How many pounds of carrots did you produce?

    I really need to produce way more carrots to get us through. I had about 6 pounds and we could use at least 20 lbs. Hopefully my carrot growing skills will improve next year!

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  5. I've never grown enough carrots to freeze them by themselves, but it's a great idea. I do put them in my frozen soup mix though when I have them. This year I hardly had any, so I need to work on my carrot growing too!

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  6. Mark mine is just a really old FoodSaver I bought about 15 years ago. Not their expensive ones, but their cheapo ones. Mostly in the past I've used it for backpacking as I dehydrated a lot of my own food. I haven't been backpacking in a while (shoulder problems), but I should have brought it out years ago for freeing food.

    Robin, I updated my side bar. 42lbs of carrots this year.

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  7. That is a really nice supply of carrots for the winter months. Carrot fly infestation really took a toll on my carrot crop this year and I am having to pretty much do without until my overwintering crop of youngsters kick in and provide a harvestable sized root next spring.

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  8. Well- THat would be the same thing as a spray tan, next time rub it all around. *snicker* ;-D LOVE the carrots... I'm jealous. ALl mine are teeny babies and will be at least a month before I see the tiniest ones come to the table.

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  9. Nice haul on the carrots. I had good carrot crop this year for the first time. I canned mine however.

    I use my foodsaver weekly and to me they are the best product out there. I have one of the first ones that came out. It needs new seals that are very inexpensive. I bought a new one that is much smaller than the original and fits on my counter so it is always ready to use. On line at their site they have been having some great sales on them. They also now have a ziploc vacuum seal bag that I use a lot.

    I buy a lot of meat on sale and I freeze all of that in vacuum seal bags in meal size portions. In fact I have chicken and left overs to do this morning.

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  10. What a terrifically lovely carrot haul. I see carrot soup, carrots in stews. . . and no more orange hands.

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  11. This nosy gardener wants to know how many square feet of garden space and how many plantings to get 42 lbs of carrots??

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  12. Hmm not quite sure. I'd say about 60. They only take up half the time in the garden. Something gets put in before or after depending if they are spring or fall carrots. So it is pretty good production for the space. I'm always happy if something produces over 1 lb/sqft/year.

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  13. Awesome carrot harvest Daphne, not to hijack this thread, but to answer Robin. I got roughly 10 lbs of carrots to freeze from 1 4 by 4 foot bed. I guess it depends on the variety of carrots and other conditions like how fertile your soil is. I planted Danvers #126 variety. I harvested 238 carrots out of that one 4X4 bed. I had planted 256 seeds, so that is a pretty good germination rate.

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  14. Looks great. I love having carrots on hand all year round.

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  15. Looks great! I am determined to get carrots to grow in my garden next year. Since I started gardening, I just have not had much luck getting them to germinate.

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  16. Beautiful carrot harvest, even if it turned your hands orange!

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