Freezing Grilled Eggplant

This is an easy way to preserve eggplant.  We bag and freeze grilled eggplant slices, and in the winter they make a wonderful sandwich filling: just thaw and heat.

For my marinade, I mix one part unemboshi vinegar, one part tamari,

 four parts olive oil, fresh ground black pepper and fresh basil leaves.





Stir the eggplant into the marinade to coat,

and refrigerate for up to four hours.
                                                                                                                                                                 

Grill lightly on both sides till just tender, four to six minutes per side,
depending on how thick your slices are. 
Allow to cool, then chill overnight in the fridge.

                                                                                                                                                   

Next day, bag up the cold eggplant  and freeze.  For the two of us, we package up four good sized slices, or six small ones.                                                                                                          

Harvesting Onions

The onion patch got pretty weedy this year, as a result of being planted in a  field that's a bit removed from the house.   Also we had a very rainy spring, and the field was underwater for quite a while, leaving the soil dense and soggy.

As a result, the onions were smaller than usual this year.  But smaller onions tend to keep well, so we should be all set for the year.

The onions are now laid out to dry.  We put them on racks in a shed which provides a dry, shaded environment with good air circulation.

The drying rack is made of chicken wire stretched on a wooden frame, and held up by cinder blocks, allowing free circulation of air under the onions.

To facilitate the drying process, the onions are spread

 out carefully, with plenty of space around them. 

When the tops dry out, in about a month, we will trim them off and store the onions in bushel baskets in our basement. 

Optimal environment for storage is dry and 50 degrees.  

Freezing Beans

As you pick the beans, snap them just below the stem, leaving the stem itself on the plant.  This saves you having to trim the stems off later.

Rinse your beans in cold water, and get rid of all the blossoms.  Then cut them into one inch lengths and follow the instructions for Freezing Broccoli.

Your beans will expand a bit as they freeze,
so pack them fairly loosely in their boxes.