A few weeks ago we traded for some raspberries. I put them in a bag and stuck them in the freezer. They stuck together and froze in one big giant mass of raspberries. They were very hard to break apart when I wanted to put a small portion in my bowl. It was a pain.
Jeff has a great solution. This time when we brought raspberries home, Jeff spread them out on a stainless steel baking pan. He put them in the freezer for awhile. When they were hard enough, he put them in a bag in the freezer and they didn’t stick together! I could easily pour myself a raspberry treat without hammering the bejesus out of the bag. Genius I tell you!
This post was a part of Fight Back Friday on Food Renegade.
Great idea, thanks for the tip! It sure is a pain hammering frozen berries apart!
I know, when I discovered this method I was SO excited too! Because before that, yeah…the block-o’-berries was not fun to deal with.
And now I do the “mound” method with stuff too…like roasted chiles that I get in the fall & peel & chop. I usually don’t use them in big quantities at once, so I’ll make little mounds of them (like 1 or 2 Tbsp) on cookie sheets & freeze them that way, or else pack them into ice cube trays.
The ice cube tray method is a favorite for pesto 🙂
Those look like deee-licious raspberries!
We do the same thing with our berries and fruit, and it works great! I hadn’t thought to do it until my father-in-law suggested it. Good idea posting it – to spread the word and help others avoid the frozen berry blob! 😉
yes, i love freezing things that way. it works well with many foods besides fruit, from meat to herbs. we use parchment for things that stick (like meat/fish/other gloppy stuff) — a sheet underneath, a sheet between layers (*don’t* press down; it will make it hard to pull the frozen pieces apart), and a sheet on top. freeze until hard, then jar or bag up. you can chop herbs, scatter them on the parchment, stir a couple times as they harden, then toss in a canning jar in the freezer, and spoon out what you need. there are a lot of herbs i like much better frozen that way rather than dried first (ymmv, of course!).
one of my friends eats a lot of fish and buys it in bulk; she filets it (if it’s not already fileted) and freezes it in serving size portions, then bags it in zipper bags.
you can do blanched veggies this way as well, if you like toh ave so almost ready to serve veg in the freezer. like green beens, pea pods, chunks of carrot or beet, etc.
blessings and joy!
carys