Spinach & Kale Preservation

This spring our garden has provided an over abundance of spinach and kale.  This, added to all the greens we have been getting weekly from our CSA, has forced me to figure out how to preserve some of these wonderful items instead of letting them go wilty and therefore, to the birds!

This week I harvested 1lb 13oz of kale and 1lb 14oz of spinach that I froze and dehydrated.  Since this is the first time I have tried either of these two methods with these greens, I’m not sure how they’ll turn out.  I guess we’ll keep our fingers crossed and wait patiently for the cold weather to provide the necessity of pulling them out and using them!

What process did I use for freezing the kale and spinach?  Well, after harvesting I…
~weighed it
~washed it
~cut out the ribs

~blanched it (2 minutes)

~gave it an ice cold bath (2 minutes)

~drained it
~bagged it
~labelled it
~froze it (in the deep freeze)

It never ceases to amaze me how small greens get when you cook them!

I also took some of the kale, dehydrated it, broke it up a bit and put it in glass jars to use later in stews and soups.

I’ve made kale chips before in order to drag out it’s life a little longer (plus Fish Girl and her best friend really like them as a snack), but I have not yet dehydrated it for future use in soups/stews, etc.