A poll: Do you *always* shock in ice water when blanching vegetables?

It depends on the vegetable. For things like green beans and broccolini that cook quickly, I say yes. But, for veggies like carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, I run them under cold water from the tap.

Anne Burrell has a good tip for shocking in ice water- salt your ice water just like you would your boiling water. That way, you do not wash off the seasoning.

I always shock, but since I rarely have ice, it's usually with cold tap water in a big pot or in the kitchen sink filled with cold water for large volumes of veggies!
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However, brings up a reflection/thought: Four of us siblings. Both parents were great cooks....but they, are parents always overcooked the veggies, at least we think so now. Times change as do attitudes about how to cook things. The reason I'm going on about this is that I remember as a kid drinking the cooking water for the broccoli and peas. The cooking water tasted better than the cooked veggies! I mean my mother served green peas that were usually like the ones that were in a can! (this was back in the 1950's by the way) YUCK! Sometimes when I'm on a nostalgia trip I cook the frozen peas, drink the water and toss the peas
Chris

I almost never do. But I rarely blanch vegetables just to eat. I'm normally doing it in before I freeze them and I don't worry too much about them being a bit overcooked because I'm going to use them in stew or soup.

Always for a crudite platter, "usually" for everything else. Love the idea of using the salad spinner, altho I would still completely dry the vegetables with towels. The spinner doesn't get them dry enough for me.

I do for green beans -- just because they cook so quickly. For everything else, I just put them in a colander and run cold water over them (usually changing the spigot setting to the spray).

I use the running cold water method and it seems to work just as well as ice water.

I do if I have it together enough to have a bowl of ice water at the ready, but if not -- which is a fair amount of the time -- I just rinse them in a colander under cold water. Fortunately my family couldn't care less about the vividness of their vegetables, so it works out either way.

I do for anything I want to stay especially green like broccoli, string beans, brussels sprouts, etc. A salad spinner works well:
In advance, so that the water gets nice and cold, add some ice to the outer spinner bowl, then wiggle the inner basket into the ice. Fill 1/2 way with cold water.
Use a slotted spoon or spider to add cooked vegetables to the ice water. After vegetables have cooled off, lift inner basket out of ice. Dump out ice and water, and if you like, put the inner basket back in and spin the vegetables to dry off.

I never seem to have a large bowl or enough ice handy when required. I just rinse the vegetables (its almost always broccoli or carrots) under cold tap water in a colander and shake off the excess water.

Yes, I do. Especially for a crudites platter.

The only thing I usually blanch is broccoli, and I scoop it out of the water into a colander, and just run a little cold water over it, rather than letting it soak in more water...