I planted several fruit trees in my yard years ago: apple, pear, and more. While my apple trees seem to flake out year after year, my pear tree and a few others produce generous amounts pretty consistently. Embarrassingly, though, I usually struggle to take full advantage of my Fall harvests and end up throwing away a lot of the produce.
Well, this year, I think I’ve finally stumbled on a simple way to make better use of my yields. As long as I can make the time to get out in my yard and harvest my ripened fruit–and make the time to do the processing afterwards–I just peel, de-core or otherwise remove the seeds and then blend up the fruity bits. The simple secret is in the storage: I pour the blended results into sandwich sized zip-lock bags. I try to remove as much air as I can, seal up the bag, and lay the bag flat like a pancake in my freezer. (For good measure, I label my storage bags with the name of the fruit and harvest date before filling them up.)
Depending on how big my harvest is, I can fill up dozens of bags. Initially, it can be difficult to find the necessary space to freeze my concoctions, but once frozen they can be moved around to more convenient areas of the freezer, stacked together and so forth.
Having these thin bags of frozen fruit works out really well when I’m ready to use them. My family and I enjoy fruit smoothies–especially protein-filled smoothies after a hard workout at the gym. When I’m assembling the contents of my smoothie in the blender, I just pull out one of my sandwich bags from the freezer. I grab either side of the bag and press the bag into the edge of the counter to break the fruit pancake in half, being careful not to rip the bag. I’ll usually repeat that step a few more times to break down one of the halves into smaller chunks. Then, I’ll open the bag and throw those small chunks into the blender. I’ll then seal the bag back up and save the other half for some other day.
The small chunks blend pretty nicely and make for a great shake, full of home grown goodness. Now I can’t wait for next year’s harvest!
Recent Comments