Fresh or frozen?

[manonthemoon2]

I've just watched a programme on UK tv about whether fresh vs frozen is best. A typical roast dinner was 100% better fresh.

Frozen came out on top for vegetables and fruit like berries, for containing more vitamins than fresh.

However a cottage pie freshly made came first for speed of cooking, this surprised me.

Since 2003 living in France, we've always adopted a more fresh approach to everything, and certainly since my heart attack last year, avoided anything processed. We rarely ate a fresh or frozen ready meal anyway.

I'm now thinking that maybe fresh isn't best, especially for fruit and veg.

Does anyone cook frozen or fresh or both?

[exile]

We cook with a mix. The nature of growing your own is that it tends to all come at once, so you end with a glut. This is a glut that we freeze. Tomatoes are probably the best example and we convert the vast excess to passata and freeze. We have tried bottling tomatoes but the work involved and the shelf space used seemed to be less efficient than "simply" freezing. We also freeze broad beans, shredded cabbage, parsnips (for soup), apples (stewed), sweet corn, haricot vert.

We also freeze raspberries, strawberries, Tayberries and blackberries but in this case it is so that we can batch convert to jam and jelly rather than making several small batches. Redcurrants are converted to jelly direct from picking, but if we have an excess, we freeze the juice and use it to help with the setting of strawberry and raspberry jam/jelly.

Carrots we clamp. Large undamaged ones are placed on a bed of cheap bought in compost, cover with the compost and another layer placed on top. The key is to ensure that they do not touch one another in the compost. We use a plastic dustbin to hold the clamp. It is left in a shelter location but outside and the carrots last through to spring.

We buy in frozen peas - which I understand are very much better than bought fresh and as for growing our own, they just do not crop well in the summer heat.

We also buy fresh watercress and freeze it. On thawing it goes to mush, but we cook with it (sauce for salmon) so it wilts anyway. The trick is the chop the cress while still frozen.

So basically a right old mix of fresh, fresh then frozen, frozen, home processed, long term stored.

[Chappers51]

I’m on my own and have recently decided to grow only raspberries and strawberries, plus several varieties of apples, pears and peaches. Strawberries I will eat as they ripen and raspberries I will freeze for winter. I don’t eat jam and don’t sweeten the fruit for purée.

I used to grow a lot of vegetables but could never eat them all either fresh or frozen. Now I buy frozen veg because I can eat just the quantity and variety I want and they’re « fresher » than the ones found on supermarket shelves or indeed those lingering in the bottom of my fridge.

In summer I will go to a local bio farm, which only sells from its on site shop on Friday evening and Saturday morning. There I can pick up fresh summer produce in just the quantity, quality and variety I need and it’s only a couple of kilometers away.

[Headers]

Oh is the chef in this house. He uses a mix of fresh and frozen. Standby frozen sliced leeks , sliced mushrooms are great when you only need a handful. Frozen berries are useful.
I pick and freeze brambles when the weather has been kind. 10kg this last summer. Eaten with porridge for breakfast all winter.
Our local veg farm has bargain boxes of root veg from time to time.
Parsnips are great parboiled and frozen.
I bottle tomatoes. They keep so well for several years so when there is a glut of long tomatoes I’ll do a few bottles of different sizes.
Figs make great savoury chutney and I make a few jars every couple of years. Diabetes means our jam intake has plummeted.

[MAD87]

A mix for me too. Danger of slicing off my fingers means I use more frozen veg now. Sliced mushrooms are surprisingly good, especially in risotto.

[Blaze]

A mixture here too. Whilst nothing can beat home grown peas, growing a reasonable amount takes a lot of space so we always buy them frozen.
We are spoilt for choice for good fresh veg here : bio and non-bio straight from the farms nearby, and if bought in a supermarket, Grand Frais is excellent (their stuff comes straight from local growers).
We grow our own spuds, tomatoes, strawberries, and other soft fruit but haven't really the time or interest to have a proper potager.

I understand that frozen fruit/veg has to be frozen very quickly to keep their goodness, so it's often "fresher" than what you buy in, for example a supermarket, or even in markets where it can be days old.

We rarely eat anything that's been pre-prepared other than what we've made and frozen ourselves.

[Lori]

I buy very few frozen vegetables. I do buy the petit pois, but not much else if I can avoid it.

I prefer cooking with fresh veggies. I do buy frozen berries as I like them in a clafoutis or in oatmeal. I've even stopped buying ice-cream. Too many recalls and additives. I make my own.

We rarely eat ready made meals or sides. I just prefer our food with as little processing and handling as possible. That can be a challenge.

Luckily, we have a pretty good choice of local fresh foods.

[manonthemoon2]

I've just tried to thank everyone for your replies but it gave a thumbs down, so thanks to all.

Lori, do you have an ice cream maker, if so, does it give whippy type ice cream? I generally don't eat ice cream from tubs as I only really like the Mr Whippy type.

[exile]

Two thoughts have subsequently been brought to mind/

1. Tinned food - we do keep a stock of tinned peas, corn, peas and carrots, bean shoots and mushrooms - essentially for instant use as required.
2. We also have a desiccator that is used primarily to provide a year round supply of courgettes for stews and the like. The heat is fairly mild so I hope that the vitamin content is largely retained. We could and do freeze but freezer space can be at a premium.

[Lori]

Lori, do you have an ice cream maker, if so, does it give whippy type ice cream? I generally don't eat ice cream from tubs as I only really like the Mr Whippy type.

We have a cheap, churn electric ice-cream maker. The result it gives depends a lot of the ingredients used. I have produced really nice, creamy ice-cream and also hard as a rock - you have to let it sit on the counter for 5 or 6 minutes before you can scoop it - ice-cream. All of it tastes good, but the consistency can vary. We don't eat a lot of ice-cream, so I haven't invested in a 'nicer' machine.