FROM GARDEN to FREEZER

by Tina Griffith

The season for fruits and vegetables to go into jars, cans, or the freezer, is almost upon us. This is what I do with fresh carrots. The method is easy and the carrots are tasty! I'm sure you'll like them.

Tina’s Tasty Carrots

1 lb. carrots, scrapped and trimmed
2 gloves garlic, diced
8 tbsp. butter, cut into pieces
2 – 3 tbsp. dried cilantro*

Cut carrots in half if long and wash them under cool water. Drop them into a pot of water, cover, and bring the pot to a boil. Boil 5 minutes, this is called parboiling. Works great with all root vegetables.

Warm garlic, butter, and cilantro in a frying pan on medium heat. *I use cilantro because my husband is from Costa Rica, but you can use Italian or regular parsley if that's better for you.

Add carrots. Allow them to simmer for a minute or two on each side, and then remove them to a cool dish. Be sure to scrape all the sauce over them.

After they are room temperature, I add them into medium-size freezer bags, making sure they lay flat. I also make sure to put two servings into each bag - one for my husband and one for me.

I want to stress the fact that the carrots need to lay flat when you put them into the freezer baggies. This helps them to get to the same temperature at the same time. Maybe it doesn't matter to everyone, but I have OCD and it's important for food safety.


The day you want to use the carrots, remove them from the plastic bag and place them into an ovenproof dish. Turn the oven on 350° F, and then prepare the rest of your meal. When dinner is ready to serve, so are your carrots.


Here's a peek at my latest romantic thriller. I hope you enjoy it!

On Hallow’s Eve, as the veil between the two worlds was thinning, the face of the full moon was lit up like a Christmas tree. The dead would soon come alive, the alive would dress up as the dead, and witchcraft had a way of piggybacking off other spells. This was the ideal night to be a witch, for the effectiveness of all incantations, divinations, and other avenues of magic, was perfect.

Jayla is a clever witch, who had been cursed in her teens by her friend, Ophelia. Since then, she has had to retrieve dark souls from shrewd men in order to survive. While she has taken hundreds of souls in her lifetime, this story is about her trying to take the one which belongs to Roger Casem – the man she accidentally fell in love with.

Could she kill him, as she had done with the others? If she wanted to continue living, she must. But today, when his eyes skimmed her body with unbelievable passion, she began to recognize her own needs. As she blushed and turned her face away from him, Jayla did the only thing she could.

AMAZON

Tina Griffith, who also wrote twenty-seven children's books as Tina Ruiz, was born in Germany, but her family moved to Canada when she was in grammar school.

After her husband of 25 years passed away, she wrote romance novels to keep the love inside her heart. Tina now has eleven romance novels on Amazon, and while all of them have undertones of a love story, they are different genres; murder, mystery, whimsical, witches, ghosts, suspense, adventure, and her sister's scary biography.

Tina has worked in television and radio as well as being a professional clown at the Children's Hospital. She lives in Calgary with her second husband who encourages her to write her passion be it high-quality children's books or intriguing romance.

Stay connected with Tina (Griffith) Ruiz on her Facebook group Tina Speaks Out.