Putting your veggies on hold until canning time

[Smiles Jr.]

Can you folks offer suggestions on successful ways to keep small amounts of green beans and cucumbers fresh while waiting for additional harvests to start canning. I always lose some of the beautiful freshness if I put stuff in the 'frig and likewise if I try to put them in brown paper bags in the cool basement pantry. Our pantry is a converted cistern under our house.

My cukes and beans get rubbery in a very short time.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I can't help you. Both lose that freshness for me pretty quickly.

My pickling cucumbers are just starting to come in. I haven't done it yet, but I'm going to try next week to make refrigerator dills. There are recipes out there that do not require heating the liquid and pouring it over the cukes. Just put them in the fridge and let them set. I don't know how they will turn out, but I plant to just make a jar of the brine and put fresh cuckes in there as they become available. When the first jar is full, start a second one. Probably not the best solution, but something I'll try.

If you don't mind, can I ask what I think is a related question. If I do as I mentioned, what does the forum think if my chances of keeping them this way in the fridge, then pouring off the brine, heating the brine, pouring it back over them, then processing them when I get enough to make it worthwhile. Will they turn mushy, especially if I put a grape leaf in with them?

 

[trunkman]

I've been canning dills on and off for the past month, I have about 15 boston pickling cuke plants and get about 6 to 10 cukes a day and didn't know how to keep them firm and crisp for canning but found a video of someone with the same problem, the found a solution, just put your cukes in a ziplock storage bag in your fridge crisper tray till you're ready to can so I tried it and it worked. If you just put them in the fridge they will go soft. I've been doing this for the past few weeks and it works!! Hope it helps...

 

[digitS']

. . . my chances of keeping them this way in the fridge, then pouring off the brine, heating the brine, pouring it back over them, then processing them when I get enough to make it worthwhile. Will they turn mushy, especially if I put a grape leaf in with them?

Interesting question, Ridgerunner. This won't be a year with lots of cukes and, I'm terrible at food preservation, so I certainly don't have an answer.

My last attempt at something similar was just following a refrigerator pickle recipe -- too, too sweet! I was left thinking that to have a successful refrigerator pickle, you must need lots of sugar! Not to my taste . . !

But, you are talking about using a more conventional solution to hold the cucumbers then using that solution and those cucumbers for canned pickles. I wish I trusted myself to do these pickles/sauerkraut/preserved meat/etc. kind of things :/.

Steve

edited to say: that refrigerator pickle recipe i followed was for "dill pickles" - not sweet pickles. however, the result was much the same.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Steve, I wish had your climate to make saurkraut. It is too darn hot here after the cabbage makes. I can do it in with air conditioning, but it is not the same as the cabbage working in a cool climate. This year's batch seems a little stronger flavored than previous years though. I'll eventually find the right method.

I personally prefer the sweet pickles so even if they are too sweet for dills they won't go to waste. My wife prefers the dills. Of course I'm trying to take care of her before I do sweet pickles for me.

Trunkman, do you mean those storage bags with the holes in them so they can breathe? Not the airtight bags?

 

[Smiles Jr.]

<snip> Trunkman, do you mean those storage bags with the holes in them so they can breathe? Not the airtight bags?

I think he means the airtight ones. I have discovered that his way works best, too. I have had some success by putting the cukes and beans in the airtight ziplock bags but I do not zip them. I think we could get the same results by poking holes in the bags and zipping them up tight. But then the bags would not be good for other things later.

 

[vfem]

Thanks for all the info here... I needed to know the same thing.

I guess I need to suck it up and get to canning these cukes pretty quick!

Suggestions of freezing green beans would be good... I haven't the time to can those or the strength. So what to do?

 

[lesa]

I have had zero luck freezing beans, vfem. Some say you don't have to blanch, just freeze- tried it, they were so bad the dog wouldn't eat them... Then I followed the blanching instructions on the Ball book- horrible!! If you find a way to do it- I would sure like to know about it!

 

[ninnymary]

Lesa, I have the same problem with green beans. Someone here, I thought it was you!!, lol, said to blanch them then put them in freezer bags. Well, I did and they tasted horrible. I was hoping it would work because I thought "This is something I can do!". :/

Mary

 

[trunkman]

As far as green beans go, I pick them and bring them in, rinse them and put them in a bowl covered with water till the weekend, haven't had a problem with them getting soft or limp yet...