Mmm, peas! Not only are these little gems delicious, but they’re super easy to store for the winter, too!
Last week, I worked on putting up black-eyed peas and purple hull peas. They are very similar in size and shape. Like the name implies, one has a black “eye” and the other a purple “eye” as well as a purple colored hull.
These were all black-eyes. Their pods will turn a pale green/yellow when they’re ready to pick. You can see that I picked a few a little on the green side and some were missed and they’re a little on the dry side. They all freeze beautifully, though!
The peas in their pod!
Now for the freezing part! After you shell the peas, give them a good wash to get them nice and clean.
Drop into a pot of boiling water and boil for two minutes.
Drain the peas from the boiling water and pour into a bowl of ice water to stop the cooking.
I like to give them a good stir to make sure they’re all cooling off.
Drain the peas again and scoop into quart bags.
I put about four cups of peas into each bag. Then, squeeze out as much of the air as you can and seal. Flatten out the bag and lay flat in the freezer. Once they’re frozen, you can easily stack them in your freezer!
We love peas at our house! Cream peas in the summer and boiled peas with corn bread in the winter! Yum, yum.
Give peas a try in your garden. When it comes to garden plants, they’re at the top of my favorites list. Mostly because they’re easy to pick!
2 comments:
Why do you have to boil them before you freeze them? Why can't you pop them in the freezer once you washed them? (Don't know why I'm asking since I don't even like peas but I was curious.)
Boiling kills whatever germs or bacteria that might have gotten on the peas in the garden or while shelling. It just sanitizes them.
Some people don't boil first, they just wash and freeze, but I like the extra protection. Most "Preserving" books like Ball recommend that you do.
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