It is the individual beans that get blanched though, right, not the whole shells ... ie you shell them first, not after?

Correct.

As for using, yes most will need to be boiled for a brief period (until al dente) before any other use such as saute or stir fry or in salads as they will still be very hard and hard to digest if not. One reason why pressure canning them works so well.

For a side dish, boiling them for 20-30 mins until fork tender in a broth with added ingredients such as onions, garlic, peppers, and other seasonings is a common method of preparing them down south. They can also be baked, added to soups and stews, etc. They can be used in jambalaya and other creole recipes, a dish called Hoppin' John (a personal favorite), dirty rice recipes, and even mashed and used like refried beans.

For freezing, after blanching and chilling, drain well and spread out in thin layer on cookie sheets to quick freeze before packaging.

Dave

The method discussed here is certainly practical, and will avoid my common pitfall of overcooking. But I now freeze a ready-to-eat dish we call country beans, which is slow-cooked shelly beans with local artisan cured bacon, onions and garlic. We eat local meats in small amounts, mostly as a condiment, and consider this a legit use of bacon if ever there was one.

As thaw and reheat beans, they are gone by year's end. This is the old Southern way to cook shellies. I allow three hours minimum for the slow cooking.

So couldn't I just cook them all the way through - 30 minutes in boiling water with a bay leaf - and then freeze that way?

If I'm going to set up the whole thing for blanching, I may as well just boil another 25 minutes and freeze fully cooked, right? Or is there some reason why that wouldn't work?

I'm not familiar with the term "shelly" beans, so I don't know what type of beans you are talking about. However, I like the flavor of speckled butter beans when they are fresh, and always harvest them that way, instead of letting them dry. I shell the fresh, moist beans and cook them in a meat stock, usually a ham hock or smoked pork neck I simmered for a while before adding the fresh butter beans and seasoning. I cook them completely, usually in my crockpot.

What we don't eat that night, I freeze. I freeze them in wide mouth canning jars, leaving adequate head space for expansion. I defrost them in the microwave (or under running water) just enough to dump them from the freezer jar into the pot to reheat.

I have never gone the route of blanching and freezing the raw beans because they come out of the freezer exactly the way I'm going to serve them. Served hot over fresh cornbread...mmmmmmmm.

I hope that helps.

Jill