Freezing Fresh Sweet Peas

I went to my local farm market this morning in search of homegrown tomatoes and tart cherries (successful on both accounts) and ended up with several other homegrown veggies, one of which happened to be about half a pound (if that) of fresh sweet peas in the pod.

I'm weird in that I like every fresh vegetable known to man, almost, except peas.  I'm weirder in that I really only like canned peas.

But last summer I discovered how awesome fresh sweet peas are in garden vegetable minestrone soup, so I had to snatch some up.

Of course, I won't be making said minestrone for another couple weeks, as we're leaving for Disney World on Thursday. And I can't leave my sweet peas in the hydrator drawer, because then they will shrivel up and dry out in the meantime.  And while I'm sure a long simmer in a pot of minestrone would help things immensely, it's just not right to do that to these poor, innocent peas.

So they needed to be frozen.

Of course, you can't just throw the peas in the freezer and say, "See you in a couple weeks!"  I'm not actually sure what would happen if you do that, but I imagine it's not what you'd want to have happen.

It's actually really easy and quick to freeze fresh peas.  I originally found good step-by-step instructions here, but a really smart friend taught me an easy way to emulate a food-saver type vacuum seal, at least for short term storage, that works way better than the straw-and-ziploc-bag method.