I'm packing up a box of them today and mailing them (along with some other veggies) to my city dwelling daughter. :)

You're adding them to stir fries and casseroles as well as eating them raw, right? (I chop the snap peas into a few pieces before cooking)

I freeze them. They do fine. Even better is to remove the bud end and any string will pull off. I cut sugar snaps in half. So much water i think it help not only in the freezer but when re-heating as well. Snow peas have less water so i don't bother cutting them.

Even better, better, i pack in pint containers or food savers with fresh cut corn off the cob, a small zucchini diced, basil, herbs,and cover with a bit of water. Fresh stock if i have it. A diced fresh tomato if i have it but for me they are weeks away. (bummer).

I'll have corn from the farm stand this weekend. (can't wait!)

No way near as good as fresh from the garden snack. But in the fall i plop that half thawed pint of veg into a chowder or chicken soup the last 10 min of cooking and it is a fresh veggie reward of a great harvest.

You could do the tests i've done by a quick blanching, then freezing. I don't bother anymore. I use them up by new years. And label well as the frozen combinations change all summer. Or freeze separate as i do allot of corn that way.

I had a new freezer delivered last weekend and in the rearranging and clean-up i found a container of red. Not tomatoes. It was smoked hot peppers and tomatillos. It said 'HOT, dilute, dilute!'. Good thing i labeled. I added it to chili last night with a frozen pint of black beans in duck stock. yum.

freeze them. cook them. make soup and freeze them in batches.

sleevendog -- are you just covering the veggies raw with water and freezing? No blanching? That's the way I freeze ramps, so maybe it works for garden veggies as well? Sure would be nice to skip all that blanching and ice watering when freezing just a few pints.

I freeze without blanching. I find the blanching takes more from the texture than whatever the freezer does to it. I ate unblanched frozen beans all winter and they tasted fine. Even the zucchini was good, and the unblanched basil tasted better. I suggest you try it both ways.

I froze my extras. As most know, blanching will stop enzymes from causing the produce to 'age' in the freezer. But especially if you plan on using them in a relatively short time (less than 3-6 months) blanching is not strictly necessary. I blanched mine, but I also I agree with Peter, if you have enough, some - blanch, and some - don't blanch. Because the appeal of peas is their sugars and that wonderful sweetness, I would want to eat any unblanched before 3 months. Blanching will help prevent sugar-to-starch conversion.

To further produce the best tasting frozen peas (or any vegetable) at home, start boiling your blanching water before daylight. Immediately as the sun rises, get out there and quickly harvest. If you have a helper, send them in with batches to toss in the water lol.

At night, without sunshine, plants convert stored starches into sugars. As soon as the sun shines and photosynthesis begins, they begin the opposite process and start to convert sugars to starch. So, if you blanch, harvest and boil as early and as quickly as possible. Is the taste difference detectable? The science is clear, but I don't know lol, I've never had enough to do a side-by-side.

As often discussed on the harvest forum (food preservation forum), the reason the blanching is recommended is that it destroys the enzymes that reside in the blossom end of any plant's fruit and those enzymes can cause faster spoilage. It also kills any bacteria that may be on the food. Freezing doesn't kill that bacteria if it is present, it only suspends its activity until thawed.

The choice to do it or not is yours depending on how long a storage life you want and what your tolerance for bacteria is.

Dave

Great ideas -- Thanks very much!

Dave - thanks for the reminder there is a Harvest forum and for the link.

Elisa - how do they tolerate mailing?

Yes - we are doing stir fries. We’re not much for casseroles. I love them raw.

Sleevendog - I didn’t know you could freeze black beans. You did mean dried beans?

lanna - what kind of soup do you use snow peas in?

Peter - I was wondering if you could freeze them w/o blanching.

Rgreen - thanks for the reason why blanching is usually called for. Maybe we will try doing it both ways and using up the unblanched quickly.

Fascinating how the time of day makes a difference.

Dave - I would be planning on cooking any pea pods that were frozen, not eating them raw, so I’d assume any potential bacteria would be killed in the cooking process.

Thank you!

I have tried both side by side. Blanch, food saver. Fresh, food saver... same day. Dated and frozen. I see no difference. Blanching will do a minor good thing by tenderizing cell walls. May be a good prep for freezing. (?) Our freezers are so much better now. Moisture is the enemy in a freezer and air in your containers. (freezer burn)

Ever noticed all that water in frozen spinach? The cardboard rectangle blocks?

I've roasted corn on the smoker lightly before freezing, using the heat already going for a meal, so no extra trouble. I do prefer that but have frozen corn without a blanch. I know for many reasons blanching is preferred.

It is time really. If i have a huge harvest, like i predict next weekend, i want it frozen quickly. If i make a quick veg stock, or a roasted bone stock...(have some duck necks and paws in the freezer), i will cool that down a bit and add that as my liquid. It will add a warm heat to my veg and act as a blanch while cooling in an ice bath.

The big enemy is that most tend to blanch way too long. A quick dunk for 15 seconds is all that is needed and into an ice bath. All set up it can be a quick process. Not that hard but in a pinch...

I do drop off harvest overload to the senior center. And neighbors. But sometimes i just am pinched for time when the garden does better than expected. ...so i try things... : )

I've read about some swearing by freezing corn fresh on the cob in the husk. Did that trial for two ears once. Did not work for me. So much air in the center 'cob'. And took up too much freezer space for any quantity. I found it lost the fresh flavor.

I should mention i am a seasonal cook. All 2014 produce is nil or minor in my freezer. Duck fat and duck stock gets a save pass, lol.

I am very rotational. You are 'in' 2015, you are out 2013. (except for my own rendered duck fat).

A few last tomato zip frozen packets remain from last season. Great for chili or a rhubarb bbq sauce for the 4th party next weekend.

as for soup just google and see what comes up. Often creamed mixed with mashed potatoes, and with bacon... Maybe served with fresh sprouts. Great on a cold winter day..

just dropping in to mention how the cool rainy weather this year has produced a huge crop of peas in the Midwest. We had only two days above 80F this year, (and they were 81 and 82F), so forget the tomatoes, but there are silver linings. I am always against peas, but my collaborators plant 2-3 dozen plants, and this year there was enough for everyone plus freezing.

Thanks Sleevendog - Helpful to hear of your experiences. Hope you have a huge harvest!

Rhubarb BBQ sauce? Never heard of that.

ianna - sounds good! I used to make a chowder with cheddar cheese, broccoli, potatoes and bacon crumbled on the top. It was SO good!

Glib - It has been cooler here too and now we’re getting more rain too. We did have enough warm sunny weather to form tomatoes. They’re doing okay, but would be better if it would start warming up. Not everyone at our house likes peas either. It’s too bad, they’re so easy to grow and so dependable.

I like peas, honestly. But in the Midwest usually winter turns into summer too fast for them to produce adequately. They are a crop for less continental climates. This year is the exception.

Weather often turns too fast here as well. I was tapping my maple trees one week, and planting sugar snaps the next....or so it seemed. From a coat and hat straight to a t-shirt. Not much jacket weather usually.

Every year is different. And why i have such a varied and large seed saved box.

Prairie- When i make stock, roasted bone broth, chicken or a veggie, i start a pot of dried beans. White bean, black, garbanzo or what i have in the pantry. I just use some of that broth/stock to cover a few pints of beans for the freezer. May even make a big batch of caramelized onions to freeze. A bit of broth to cover does help the freezer shelf life and nice to glance the freezer in the fall/winter months and put together a soup 'a-la-carte'. Pick and choose rather than make up a big pot of soup and have the same soup over and over.

My freezer is thin right now as it is every early July. We are eating fresh now. Had the last of a batch of chili the other night that was labeled 'too spicy'. So i added a pint of frozen black beans and a pint of frozen smoked salsa. Had to stretch that heat.

I have massive amounts of rhubarb that just grows wild. I use it in so many things. Diced and cooked till just soft it is not unlike sautéed onion with a tartness that citrus has. A nice natural thickener was well.

We had a very hot dry Spring here that was more like summer except at night and I had no problems with my Sugar Snaps. They grew 8 feet high. There are still some peas growing on them now, though they are definitely done setting any fruit. I have a couple bags in the freezer. They did not show signs of stress until the nights were in the 60s routinely.

There you go. Nights in Michigan have been reliably in the 50s. Got to 49 two or three nights ago. But now warm weather is here to stay, so the peas will shut down fast.

rgreen -- that was great info about when to harvest. I've always heard harvest early, but then I think it'll be fresher if I harvest late. Now I know why to harvest early! It's usually so dew soaked in the a.m. I try not to touch the plants, but this year it is always wet, so I might as well get in there in the morning.

prairiemoon, most things travel very well with priority mail. I even mailed a carton of blackberries. My daughter sent me pictures of all the stuff she cooked with the produce, and my veggies even joined her in-law's home made sausage in one dish :)

Great thread -- learned more about the chemistry behind blanching than ever before. Though I tried freezing non-blanched bush beans one year and had to throw them all out. (probably because the freezer wasn't the greatest.)