We keep a tray of eggs in the fridge but use the following for storing them on the kitchen bench:

Freezing veges question

Potatoes into wedge/chip size, and into roast size

Carrots into pennies

They say to blanche, then put in ice water to stop the cooking then freeze

I dont want to ice water them, I'd like to let them cool and steam dry so I then pop them into freezer bags, open top, and into freezer. After 30-40 minutes when surface water has frozen, I;d scrunch them up to be free flow, in the hope that from then on, bag tied, they remain pretty free flow

Blanche times dont seem to be a science, i.e. 4-5 minutes etc, so does it matter if I let them air dry first while cooling? I guess I could roll them in a clean towel, but seems easier to let them air dry to minimise surface water

Blanch I'd say 1-3 minutes absolute maximum depending on the size and density of the vegetable in question.

Ice water is to stop the cooking process, so they aren't overcooked, bearing in mind they will obviously get heat when cooked again. 

You may have to have a couple of goes to determine what works for you and your preferences. 

networkn:

 

Blanch I'd say 1-3 minutes absolute maximum depending on the size and density of the vegetable in question.

 

Ice water is to stop the cooking process, so they aren't overcooked, bearing in mind they will obviously get heat when cooked again. 

 

You may have to have a couple of goes to determine what works for you and your preferences. 

 

Thanks. I finally found ice water vs non ice water comparison

Seeing the results side-by-side, it was immediately clear that all of my lazy tap-water-chilling sessions had been a mistake. The ice-bath asparagus looked and tasted fresher, crisper, and greener. When I called my colleagues into the office for a blind tasting, without telling them what I was testing, they all picked out the ice-bath asparagus as the best. 

Re stopping the cooking, I assumed that slowing down naturally is no worse then blanching a little bit more. But it seems that the ice water locks in good things, which now sees to make sense

It's about stopping the ongoing cooking process. 

When I blanch veges I do this: -

• Bring water to boil in a big pot;
• Rinse veges to be blanched under hot tap;
• Dump veges into water;
• As soon as the water is back to the boil, I pull them out again and  dump them into ice water;
• After they have cooled, drain them and pat dry if neccesary.

I then either: -

• Vac pac and freeze in portions; or
• Layout the veges on a silicon baking sheet, cover with glad wrap and freeze.  After they are frozen put them in a bag.

The idea with the big pot and the hot water rinsing, is to minimise the time taken to bring the veges back to the boil.  You have more latitude with slower cooking things like carrots than with faster cooking things like zucchini.

The free-flow freezing technique works for almost anything.

We spent part of Sunday making sauce with the the last of the tomatoes, freezing zucchinis and making the last lot of jalapeno gherkins.  Caught the last two trout of the season too.  The end of summer's bounty.

A few years ago we ate at a restaurant in Hawaii called PF Changs. They are apparently famous for lettuce cups, which we didn't know at the time but ordered by co-incidence. They are magical things, we loved them and have had them many times since when we get the chance to get to a PF Changs. 

I actually found a recipe in the weekend for them and made them. They were fantastic. I highly recommend it.

https://damndelicious.net/2014/05/30/pf-changs-chicken-lettuce-wraps/

It didn't take long to make, and that fed 4 of us with a little leftover when combined with a potato salad (I'll post the recipe for that too at some stage as it's awesome). 

We bought some pizza bases from Simon Gault, they are part of a kit. 

We defrosted them and rolled them. I prefer thinner but my kids like thicker. We used fan bake in the oven at 250c on a pizza stone that was in the oven from when it was turned on. 

The issue we had was that the base was getting that nice charred look and ingredients were cooked, but when we got it out, and ate it, the base was undercooked in the middle, even my thinner one. 

I contacted them and they said they didn't really experience that and hadn't had any complaints, but weren't really able to tell how how to resolve it. 

I've not had this issue before with other bases, including the ones we make ourselves. I wondered about prebaking them at a lower temp, but that's a lot of faffing around, or perhaps a lower temp, say 220c?

How warm are they after defrosting and before going into the oven? Can you leave them at room temperature for longer?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjsCEJ8CWlg is my go-to pizza base recipe now. Not THAT much work and so delicious (if you're prepared the day before).

Yeah, we think that might have been a factor. We will defrost for longer. It says to defrost and leave at room temp until it doubles in size and it never really got significantly larger than when it was frozen, we aren't sure if perhaps the rising agent got killed along the way?

My go to recipe was the one @freitasm posted a few pages back. We have had one turn out epically using it, and one that was just good, though we aren't super sure why the second one wasn't quite as good. We don't make a lot of home-made pizza, but clearly have some work to do to perfect it. 

Delphinus:

 

How warm are they after defrosting and before going into the oven? Can you leave them at room temperature for longer?

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjsCEJ8CWlg is my go-to pizza base recipe now. Not THAT much work and so delicious (if you're prepared the day before).

 

https://www.langbein.com/recipes/perfect-pizza-dough

this one has always worked for me.  very easy.

I'm going to have a go at 15 Hour Potatoes from Tik Tok, any potato experts read this thread?

Recipe calls for Maris Piper potatoes which is a UK variety. 

Would you substitute for Agria?

networkn:

 

I'm going to have a go at 15 Hour Potatoes from Tik Tok, any potato experts read this thread?

 

Recipe calls for Maris Piper potatoes which is a UK variety. 

 

 

 

Would you substitute for Agria?

 

 

 

Maris Piper are floury, so from here:

"Varieties which tend to be floury are IIam Hardy, Red Rascal, Agria (and related varieties Bolesta and Markies), Fianna, Victoria, Laura, Marabel"

Skillet charred corn added to salads (small can of whole corn kernel, drain, fry in pan on medium-high temp with no oil until golden+).  Thanks hellofresh