Tuesday, February 17, 2009

It's Alright to Cry

We had a LOT of onions in the house.
Way more than I could use all at once. So, I chopped 'em up.
Did you know that you can freeze onions?
Well, you can. Here are all those onions, all chopped up and headed for my freezer. To be used whenever chopped onions are called for in a recipe!

I don't know if it's scientifically proven but I find that when I chop onions with my contact lenses in, no tears. Except when chopping quite this quantity. There were definitely tears.

What other interesting things can you freeze?

I used some of my onion chopping to make this Brown Rice and Lentil Casserole. (I've adapted it a bit)
  • 3 cups broth (today I used Very Veggie Juice (Thanks Dad!) instead of broth. 2 1/2 cups of juice and 1/2 cup water)
  • 3/4 cup lentils
  • 1/2 cup brown rice
  • 3/4 cup chopped onion
  • can of mushrooms (didn't have any fresh on hand)
  • season salt, pepper, garlic, basil, parsley
  • 1 cup grated cheese (cheddar is what I had, I also added parmesan (which I keep in the freezer))
Preheat the oven to 300 degrees.Mix all ingredients except the cheese in a baking dish (I use an 11 x 7). Cover with foil and bake for 1 hour 10 minutes. Then remove the foil, add the cheese, and bake for an additional 20 minutes.
 
I served it with spinach salad and baked tofu. Super yummy. 

This is what works for me. Go see what works for other people.

9 comments:

Renee Nefe said...

Having chopped onions in the freezer is nice. We don't use a lot so when I have a recipe that needs them I put the extra in the freezer.
Your recipe looks very yummy.

Anonymous said...

I am new to the whole freezer thing. I few years ago I was a waster and I love getting new tips! I will have to do during the summer hopefully if my garden does good.

Milehimama @ Mama Says said...

I freeze soaked beans, rice, onions, bread crumbs. If it's not nailed down, I'll freeze it to keep it from going bad!

mub said...

Great minds must think alike because I just posted about freezing onions too *L*

You're right about the contact thing too! When I wore contacts I never cried chopping onions, but now that I'm back to glasses the rivers start flowing again.

I like chopping and freezing bell peppers too. They're great to have on hand.

Anonymous said...

I freeze onions too. I flash freeze them before I bag them and last year I posted how with photos. That post is constantly on my top 10!

mub must be right, great minds think alike and judging from my stats on that post, there are a LOT of people who want to chop a whole bunch of onions at one time and just get it over with.

Angela @ Nine More Months said...

I freeze everything! I like to spread them out on a cookie sheet and freeze them that way, then I put the frozen ones in a bag. It keeps them from turning into a giant clump in the freezer. Thanks for sharing!

RivkA with a capital A said...

"Clump and Dump" ;-)

I make chicken soup every week (for Shabbat). I often freeze ingredients in baggies, in soup size portions, so I can just take the clump from the freezer and dump it in the soup.

I freeze:
carrots, zucchini, celery, celerly leaves, parsley, dill, garlic, tomatoes (my family's "secret" ingredient)

Interestingly, though I freeze everything, I never freeze onions since you can store them forever and they don't go bad (unless they get wet)

Also, we use onions so quickly that I just keep leftover onions in the fridge and we use them. If they are still there by Fri, they just go in the soup!

Anonymous said...

The recipe sounds wonderful, and I will have to try it.

Larry Lennhoff said...

Any idea how freezing onions impacts with the minhag against leaving peeled onions (and eggs) uncooked overnight? We asked our rabbi about keeping them in the fridge, and he suggested adding oil or salt to them so they did not count as raw. I'll have to ask him about freezing sometime.