Freezing Blueberries

You can freeze many different fruits very easily. Blueberries, I think, are the easiest. Last weekend we finally had an opportunity to go picking. The crop this year was late because of the weather, but it was a really good one. The berries are large and very flavorful.

I froze the berries a little different this year after reading how Keeper of the Home freezes her berries.

First I ran cold water over them in a colander and let it sit for a couple minutes to drain the water

Then I poured them gently onto a kitchen towel (be sure it’s not a nice one, because it will get stained a little)

I gently rolled them around and removed stems, leaves and any bad berries. Be sure to do this a few times because the berries with stems like to hide.  Then I placed another towel on top to absorb the water. You may want others in the house to know that you have berries under the towels. While I was doing this, two different times, the boys laid dishes on top of the towel. Then I poured them into a quart freezer bag, if you pick up the ends of the towel, being sure to close up one end with your hand, you can pour them straight into the bag.

We picked about 30 pounds of berries. I froze 8, very full quart size  bags. Baked muffins, a coffee cake and we ate a lot of them.

Even though it was hard for me to spend $50 ($1.67/lb) on blueberries, I knew we would enjoy them all winter. Being the frugal housewife that I try to be, I wondered, was it cost effective to pick. So, while at the grocery stores this week, I did a price comparison.

Aldi’s blueberries are a special price right now because they are in season, they are $2.69 for 16 oz. The other stores had name brand blueberries (Dole) for $3 something per bag.

So, I guess it was definately worth picking. It only took us about 1 hour each time we went.