Fresh from frozen: Whipping up fresh meals from freezer

Craving warm, hearty dishes is an appropriate approach to winter meal time. With temperatures back to a normal briskness this month, soups and braises are on many home menus. Yet given the richness of the holidays, and in the midst of New Year's resolutions, is it possible to keep classic cold-weather meals fresh and healthy when little produce is in season?

"Fruits and vegetables are colorful, flavorful and nutritious components of our diets and are often most attractive and health-promoting when harvested at their peak maturity," report Joy Tickman, Diane Battett and Christine Bruhn for the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture. "Unfortunately, most people do not have home gardens capable of supplying the recommended 5-13 daily servings year-round."

This fact can seem like a challenge, but not nearly as challenging as in times past.

Freezing foods at their peak ripeness has been a method of preservation popular to home cooks and commercial kitchens since the dawn of refrigeration for good reason. Unlike canning, freezing perishables is a simple way of putting by without the technical burden and some of the nutritional loss caused by high heat.

Frozen foods can even trump fresh produce in the winter months. Fresh may be considered best most of the time, but in January this sentiment can be disputed as most grocery store produce is shipped from afar.

Because many vegetables begin converting their natural sugars into starch almost immediately after harvesting, freezing can stop this process in its tracks, resulting in a delicious preserved product.

Consider fresh corn on the cob, a classic summertime treat. When harvested at its sweetest and immediately frozen, winter meals can have a summertime appeal with no hassle, bringing us back to the matter of those hearty soups and braises. Choosing the right frozen ingredients can result in a surprisingly fresh dish.

The Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture goes on to explain why an increase in fruits and vegetables year round is so important: "The World Health Organization estimates that sufficient fruit and vegetable consumption could save up to 2.7 million lives annually." This could have a broad effect on public health if consumers were to increase their daily intake of fruits and vegetables by about double the current average.

In developed countries, convenience is often the biggest reason the daily intake is so low, which seems a poor excuse given the widespread availability of household freezers and other modern appliances that can make food storage and cooking so straightforward.

The key is to make cooking fresh meals from frozen ingredients a simple task to create less hassle. Provided here are some ideas for using frozen foods to increase daily intake of fruits and vegetables.

More important: Be creative. For example, add frozen snow peas, bell peppers and broccoli to stir-fry, or try blanched frozen peas with feta as a side dish. Even frozen asparagus can turn a simple pasta dish into something most welcome when ice crystals cover the landscape. If nothing else, grab an assortment of quality frozen vegetables, steam and enjoy with your favorite dipping sauce over rice.

Frozen corn makes a hearty winter corn chowder, or use frozen spinach tucked into pastry with fresh eggs for spinach pie (see the recipes included here).

Finally, stock up on frozen fruit. You can top warm steel cut oats with your favorite frozen fruits such as raspberries or blueberries or simply warm frozen peaches on the stovetop with some cinnamon for a hot winter dessert, then sit back and let the snow fall.

Sweet Corn Chowder

¹/₂ large sweet onion, chopped

2 celery stalks, chopped, plus any additional celery leaves, chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

2 tablespoon butter or olive oil

3 gold potatoes, chopped

1 bag frozen organic sweet corn kernels

5-6 cups chicken stock

salt and pepper to taste

In a heavy soup pot, melt butter over medium heat. Sauté onion, celery and potato for about 10 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Stir in garlic. Add stock and corn.

Simmer until all flavors marry, about 30 minutes. Adjust seasonings.

Remove from heat and allow to cool. Transfer about 3-4 cups of the soup to a food processor or blender and blend until smooth.* Return to soup pot and stir. Rewarm. Ladle into bowls and sprinkle with chopped parsley.

* Blending a portion of the soup creates a creamy texture without dairy. You can do this with many other soups to create the same outcome.

Spinach Pie

For the pastry:

1 ¹/₄ cup whole grain organic pastry flour

¹/₂ teaspoon sea salt

8 tablespoons cold high quality unsalted butter, cubed

3-4 tablespoons ice water

For the filling:

2 tablespoons olive oil or butter

1 medium sweet onion, chopped

2 garlic cloves, minced

3 cups frozen spinach, thawed and drained

4 fresh eggs

2 cups whole milk

dash of nutmeg

sea salt and pepper

2 tablespoons panko breadcrumbs

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Make pastry by placing dry ingredients in a food processor. Pulse. Add the butter and blend until it resembles a course meal. Slowly pour in the ice water with blade running until dough forms.

Turn out onto a floured work surface. Form dough into a disk and wrap in parchment. Chill for 15 minutes.

Return dough to work surface. Roll out with a rolling pin to desired pastry thickness, about ¹/₄ inch.

Place in a deep dish pie pan. Trim edges and crimp. Pierce dough with a fork all over.

Place parchment paper on bottom surface of dough, fill with dry beans or pie weights.

Bake for 10 minutes. Remove from oven and place on a wire rack. Allow to cool slightly before removing parchment and weights.

To make the filling, set a large skillet over medium heat with 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil. Add the onion. Sauté until translucent. Add the garlic. Sauté 2 minutes more before adding the spinach. Season with sea salt and pepper.

Sprinkle bottom of prepared crust with the breadcrumbs.

Mix the eggs, milk, and nutmeg in a medium bowl. Season with salt and pepper.

Pour into crust. Add the spinach mixture. Optional: Sprinkle with cheese of your choosing such as feta, gruyere, Swiss or cheddar.

Bake for about 40 minutes or until top is golden and filling is set. Cool slightly before slicing and serving.

Cream of Broccoli Soup

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

1 medium onion, chopped or 2 large leeks (white and light green parts only, rinsed and chopped)

2 celery ribs, rinsed and chopped

2-3 medium gold potatoes, peeled and chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

sea salt and pepper

4 cups frozen broccoli

4 cups chicken stock

1 ¹/₂ cups whole milk

In a heavy soup pot, melt butter over medium heat. Add onion or leeks, celery and potato. Season with salt and pepper. Sauté until soft. Add garlic and broccoli. Cook for about 4 minutes before adding the chicken stock.

Cover and simmer until all ingredients are very tender, about 20 minutes. Remove from heat. Pour in milk. Working in batches, puree in a food processor, or blend until smooth with an immersion blender.

Return to pot and heat. Serve with a sprinkle of hard cheese.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF FOOD PRESERVATION

Eating well year-round was a dilemma so great to the French army during Napoleon's reign (1803-1815) that a reward was offered to anyone who could come up with a solution to preserving large quantities of food to feed troops.

Foods cooked within jars had been observed as a means to slow spoilage by this time in history, but the dawning of large-scale canning was a slow, long journey with mostly small-scale success.

In 1812, industrial canning became a popular means of food preservation in the U.S., becoming a primary preservation method by the time of World War I.

Preservation as a means to store excess food has been used by humans from the beginning of time, even before modern processing techniques and refrigeration made it a simple task, but the question today is which preservation method preserves the integrity of the food the best?

Without getting too technical, it is important to understand why preservation is so important. Dehydrating microbial cell walls or killing (or slowing) harmful bacteria is the prime preservation objective while maintaining as much of a food's original character.

This is usually done using salt, sugar, acidity or extreme temperatures. But some of these methods not only destroy microbes, they can destroy a food's nutrients as well.

Popular food preservation falls within a handful of methods: Canning, freezing, dehydrating and curing or fermenting.

Canned products clearly offer the most convenience to consumers since items are considered safe in most environments (without refrigeration) for sometimes years after they are sealed, but the heat required for canning can destroy heat-sensitive nutrients such as vitamin C and thiamin.

Freezing, on the other hand, replaces the microbial cell wall with ice, slowing or stopping bacterial growth while keeping many nutrients intact. This method has been used by hunters and gathers for centuries to preserve foods where geography allowed, though it is a relatively recent widespread luxury.

Although the food industry began freezing for transport in the late 1880s, household freezers were not invented until 1913 and remained an expensive luxury item, costing twice as much as a new Ford in 1922. (A early proponent of home refrigeration was George Vanderbilt, who included two walk-in refrigerators in Biltmore House when it was constructed in 1895.)

Freezer units (or deep freezes) were not commonplace in most U.S. households until the 1940s, changing the food industry permanently. Until then, canned or tinned foods were the most common household convenience item.