Freezing zucchini
How do you prepare fresh zucchini for freezing to use later to make zucchini bread? Is it necessary to blanch before freezing? Thank you and all the people who work there to get out the information that I and my family can use. As a disabled vet I am somewhat limited in what I can do, but seeing how you do things helps me to figure out a way most of the time.
Leon Hadden
Metter, Georgia
Zucchini is super-easy to freeze. Just grate it up coarsely and then bag it in freezer bags. No blanching necessary. When you use it, just measure it out, liquid and all. (After all, the squash had the liquid before it was frozen!) — Jackie
Orphaned chicks
Earlier this spring something killed off 3/4 of my hens and injured my rooster. He recovered, and my one remaining hen went broody. She managed to hatch out four chicks and it has been so neat to watch her with them, teaching them to live the way chicken babies were meant to live, no heat lamps and very little commercial food.
Unfortunately, yesterday something got mama hen. I don’t know what to do with the babies. They are about 2 weeks old, pretty well feathered out, and they can fly already. I have another batch of chicks that I bought and brooded under heat lamps, but they are almost a month older and I’m afraid they’ll pick on the babies. Plus the babies can still go right through the fence where I have the older birds. My rooster is protective of the babies, but he doesn’t sit on them the way mama hen did. I don’t have any other adult hens to take them in. What would you do in a situation like this?
Carmen Griggs
Bovey, Minnesota
The babies will probably do okay where they are. Watch them closely and if they act cold, bring them in and let them use a heat lamp for a couple of weeks just to be sure. You might try the older chicks under strict supervision. Put ’em in at night when the older chicks aren’t so active. I know the lamp is still on, but the dark seems to trigger their quiet mode. — Jackie
