Hiya Mel, We just clean them when we get home from the lotty. we then cut them about one inch segments and then bag them…and into the freezer they go. No tray. Now then, when you take them out to use as an added flavouring to whatever dish yousre making, judt know that they are then very soft, yet a bit tough-ish. We boil them before using so they will not be tough-ish. They were not meant to be frozen, but we do it anyway because we like to eat them all year round. We use them in this curry like I wrote about up above, or in a stamppot (a dish with mashed potatos and; in this case, leeks stirred-through. Butter or a gravy on top and a sausage on the side). We further use the frozen leeks in ratatouille-type dishes and vegetable stews. I hope that you will like them as much as we do, should you decide to try them.
We buy a veggie and vegan meatless mince, i portion it up into 3 and freeze it. 1 portion is between both of us. We wanted to cut out having corned beef once a week, we tried a mushroom one but it didn't have the taste that we wanted. I just cook it in the microwave for a few minutes and fluff it up while it's cooking to look like mince.
No, it is the soya mince etc that I call cardboard Daniel, and we really like the quorn and use it often. It forms the base for many of our meals. Ziggy doesn't mind a certain amount of cardboard soya, but the quorn is succulent in many dishes. I usually make all the dishes that are made with meats with quorn. Not so much the manufactured ready to eat packs, but it can be cut into pieces and resembles chicken and turkey, it can be flavoured in many ways, minced, marinated etc. I make sausages and burgers out of it too. Christmas dinner will be quorn wellington with all the usual roast turkey trimmings.
@Tetters, I'm glad you have that option! I've tried a lot of meatless substitutes. Not sure Im happy with any, although there are times that I use other things to take the place of meat flavors and textures. I like sautéed mushrooms, for example, or add scrambled egg to tacos or burritos, or cook tofu in various ways.
My oldest Daughter's fave now is tofu in her air fryer, in place of frying it. And she makes her own meatless creation with chickpeas, mushrooms, eggs and crumbs etc for their burgers and meatballs. She tried your meatloaf recipe last week and it is on the favourite list now apparently.
That is now our plan I gave away a bunch of starts last spring, because I thought I had too many. We're looking forward to having some in the freezer. We do love our leeks, and miss chives in the winter. Thank you Sjoerd.
If my son is able to travel safely, tonight will be his request of a roast beef, gravy, popovers, mashed potatoes, carrots and corn ( peas for Hubby and I also as Son cannot have legumes). If he must postpone, then spaghetti will be the order of the evening. He is a student, so looks forward to home cooking.
You are welcome, Mel. I hope that you have a good crop next season. Do you ever freeze or dry chive snippers ?
I do. I have bundles of them in the freezer that I cut off from. They seem to lose all flavour though. I have never tried drying them. I do also buy green onions at the grocery. I cut them down to the white portion, ( keeping the greens in the fridge) and put them in water on the window ledge. They grow back about three times. Come January I will be starting my leeks and onions, and we eat the wee trimmings from those. I thought about freezing some of the onions this year, but so far your amazing stringing trick has worked wonders. They are keeping well in the art room, and I have some hanging in the kitchen.
Oh Mel, I am so delighted that the onion string is working well for you. D’you know what though— the Bride periodically chops up a few and freezes those little cubes in so that when she is cooking, she can just reach into the freezer, pull out the bagged snippets, take a handful and just toss them into the dish. Its is handy and quick. We still have some onions left, how about you?
We had less onions this year, probably due to the lack of rain, however last year we had them strung up in plaits all over the place, and there were so many and much bigger that as they started to go over come spring, I chopped those up for the freezer. The frozen leeks from then are now very few, but still ok to use (especially in curries)
Of the 200, I think we have about 50 left? They are keeping very well - the strings have helped a lot as opposed to having them in laundry baskets. The freezing is definitely something I was wondering about.
My onions did very poorly this year. I think most of it was I couldn't keep up with their care when it was most needed. Hoping for a better 2023 with good varieties and better care.
We always chop and freeze onions, courgettes, celery,and peppers and freeze them without any other treatment. Other veggies need to be blanched. ''Mashed potato pancakes, topped with butter, cheese and Cholula hot sauce - A Mexican hot sauce.'' Daniel, I would never have thought of this concoction. It's a brilliant idea - did you think it up? Quite a lot of my successes in the kitchen are total accidents!
