Soggy carrots!

[moggssue]

I posted this on a different forum but now think I might have got it wrong so have reposted it here instead - sorry folks!

I froze bags and bags of little Amsterdam Forcing carrots during the summer, no blanching just a good wash, and used the first of them last night, the fresh garden supply having just finished. What a disappointment - soggy and chewy and pretty much inedible! I'll try making soup with the rest rather than waste them, but any tips for how to do it 'properly' next year and what might have gone wrong??

[Snadger]

I have also tried freezing them in the past with similar results. Tasteless and soggy!

I've also tried storing them in sand and peat but they were limp and some were blackened when I came to use them!

This year I've just left them in the ground, covered by enviromesh,((as they have been all year) and dig lovely fresh carrots whenever I need them!

[rustylady]

Baby carrots don't freeze well - too much water content and when you freeze things the water expands and bursts the cell walls. If you're growing baby carrots eat them fresh - any you can't eat at the time leave in the ground to mature.

[moggssue]

thanks both! So I take it next year when I grow 'full size' carrots I will be able to freeze them? The problem was lots were ready at the same time and I didnt think they'd stand in the cold wet ground too well - you live and learn!

[wellie]

Oh moggssue, what an angel you are for posting this thread.....

I did exactly the same as you, and when Trousers complained about his dinner one night, that the Amsterdam Sweetheart II's were soggy and chewy, I threatened to pull the arm off his Teddy Bear I was so upset....
Since then, I've not been defrosting them in the microwave or chucking them straight into a pan of boiling, but I've put them in an ovenproof dish. Then I've put the dish in the oven on low for long enough to thaw AND heat them through to eating temperature. That way, they're marginally more edible!
Wow, what a lot of intelligent peeps we've got on this forum! Thanks for that blinder of a bit of info Grapes, dead appreciated.....

[moggssue]

Wellie - you are a bravre soul than me!! One unfinished plate from OH was enough for me - all my Amsterdams are now soup! Serves them jolly well right for not being nice and crunchy and crispy!!

At least we'll know for next year hey!!

[Two_Sheds]

I bought six huge bags of big old carrots (not baby ones) from T*sco to freeze, and they all turned mushy, soggy, Orrible.

[Snadger]

I bought six huge bags of big old carrots (not baby ones) from T*sco to freeze, and they all turned mushy, soggy, Orrible.

Serves you right, you should have grown your own!

[jacob marley]

When i left school in 19hundred and frozen to death the large market garden used to grow 40 acres of carrots they was just starting to leave them in the ground over winter what they did was to go through the rows with a small ransome crawler with scufle tines on an just cover the top of the carrot with a thin layer of soil.
In the spring when the carrots started to grow again dig them up with a adapted beet harvester and being as the carrots was fresh and used to wash nice and clean so there is no need to dig them and freeze them they will keep very well in the ground jacob

[moggssue]

I was worried my small carrots would get got by the frost, or eaten by something .... next year I'll try leaving them in the ground longer. You learn by your mistakes ...