Freezing vegetables - Helpful Tips

In a family of three, I have weeks where we buy food and vegetables and we don't have time to eat everything. This will naturally lead to waste of food, due to it being rotten. But since I hate to throw away food I freeze what we cannot eat during its fresh phase. I have done this for some time now and it works perfectly every time. 

Being from Sweden, we are very good at recycling. The Swedish recycling program is in fact so successful that they need to import waste from other European countries for its energy conversion program, as burnt waste energy is being used for heating and electricity for Swedish households. We are taught from a very young age at schools the benefits of recycling and how the lack of it can be  harmful for the environment. 

So, when I moved to UK it was very natural for me to begin to recycle and have different bins for food waste, recyclable trash etc. At the same time I do my best to use up our food leftovers as much as possible to prevent it from going into the food waste bin. Having this in the back of my head every day when I cook, has helped me to come up with very good recipes for leftovers :)

Few weeks ago, I bought celery and broccoli for husband to make milkshakes but they ended up not being used. As I was going away for few days, I also cleared the fridge from most of the vegetables that I knew would not be used while I was away, such as zucchini, butternut squash carrots, few pieces of chopped up onions and garlic. So, I simply chopped up all the vegetables and put them in freezer bags and told family to take out only the amount they will use. This has been a very successful way to prevent me from having to much food waste and always have vegetables ready for a stew. 

Although, the best way of freezing vegetables should start with either of the two methods: blanching or  steaming, before putting them in the freezer. But I feel that it works well without these methods as well. It is really up to you how you prefer it, but please do freeze what ever you have for leftovers or before you vegetables go rotten, as almost everything can be reused.