Keeper of the Home » Preserving Food

September at Our Home

Stephanie @ Keeper of the Home — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 10:00:24 +0000

I can hardly believe that fall is upon us already, but the beautiful crimson leaves outside my window attest to the fact that it's true. I am always sad to see the summer go, especially since we had such a short season of truly warm summer weather here in the Pacific Northwest, and yet I do relish autumn as a time to take stock of things, slow down, establish new routines and capture summer's last fleeting moments before we say good-bye for another year.

This summer was full of activity. At the end of May, my husband and I joined an amazing team of other bloggers and went to the Philippines with Compassion International, a brief but life-changing trip. Shortly after returning home, we joyfully discovered that we were expecting our 4th child! From there, the next two months became a blur of nausea and fatigue, pathetic suppers and overflowing laundry baskets, homestay students, and summer fun interspersed amidst it all.

In early July we lost a dear friend, and then spent a week on the Oregon Coast with her husband and children and some friends from church in early August. It was an emotional time, but a special opportunity, and we made many memories that we will cherish.

By mid-August, I was helping my husband full-steam ahead with registration and scheduling for our family business, Resound School of Music. Business is booming, which has made the business/daily life balance very challenging, but we're grateful for how the Lord has been blessing this work. From there, the weeks blurred together and somewhere in there we enjoyed family outings in the summer heat, my husband's and youngest child's birthdays, our 8th anniversary and then began the new homeschool year just the other week.

Homeschool This Year

With our oldest doing Gr.2 work and our second oldest now joining in and doing pre-kindergarten, it seems that the workload has increased significantly since last year. Here is our basic schedule for the weekdays:

Aim to be finished eating by 8:30am, with everyone dressed and ready for the day, so that we can do chores and get the kitchen tidy before we begin at 9am.
At 9am, I gather all 3 children together for a Circle Time, where we read a Bible story, work on memory verses, do one lesson from Get Wisdom (Biblically-based character lessons/devotionals for young kids), and pray together.
At 9:15, I get my 6 1/2 year old settled with a non-fiction book on any variety of topics (science, history, art, etc) for silent reading while I work 1-on-1 with the 4 year old. He and I are doing a few preschool workbooks, flashcard games and simple worksheets (he's loving these dog and cat worksheets right now), with the intention of getting him used to spending a short but focused period of time at the table with me, and introducing him to his letter sounds (we aren't doing letter names yet- I like the method for teaching reading in Ruth Beechick's A Home Start in Reading), numbers and counting 1-10, shapes, colors, patterning, etc.
From 9:30 until 10:30, we work on the basics- Language Arts (this year we're using First Language Lessons, Writing with Ease, Explode the Code, and Sequential Spelling, in addition to plenty of reading), and Math (Math-U-See Beta).
At 10:30, the kids have snack and recess (outside if the weather is good) and mommy takes a breather or hops on the computer.
At 10:45, we're back to whatever Language Arts we didn't get done before recess.
Around 11, we begin a more extended period of time to work on history (we're doing Story of the World, Book 1- Ancient History), geography (Legends and Leagues from Veritas Press), and science (we're using various books from Evan Moore to explore Simple Machines, Energy, and Habitats this year, as well as another book on Rocks and Minerals). We do history twice a week, science twice, and geography once.
We finish up by noon, when I begin to make lunch and Abbie can sit at the kitchen table finishing up anything that's not quite finished. Today she was drawing pictures of the tale of Gilgamesh (an ancient Assyrian folk tale) to complete our history lesson, for example.

What do I do with the 2 year old? Hmm, very good question. I still haven't really figured it out yet myself. I think that I'm going to train her to stay in a play pen, with various kinds of activities and toys for at least part of the time. Sometimes she sits in the high chair and either eats or colors. Sometimes she just plays happily. Sometimes she drives us all crazy and gets into everything.

We've definitely got some work to do in this area and I'm open to ideas. I really need to go back and re-read Natalie's excellent post with Seven Strategies for Home Schooling Moms (because I'll learn everything I can from a mom of 8!).

Pregnancy Update: 20 Weeks!

I love to hit the 20 week milestone. There's just something about being halfway there that is so encouraging for me.

I had the normal nausea and fatigue, but once I got to about 12 weeks, my stomach started to even out. I remained fairly tired until about 15-16 weeks, when I started feeling more like my usual self. My guess is that we're having a boy, since that's the same pattern that my son's pregnancy followed, whereas I remained both sick and tired right up until 16 weeks with my girls, but who knows?

Most days, I only vaguely remember that I'm pregnant. I suppose that's how it goes with #4! Life is so busy that it's only pulling on my maternity clothes in the morning, the achy muscles each time I get out of a chair, the evening indigestion or the occasional baby movements that remind me of this sweet little life growing inside.

I'm doing my best to simply eat well (lots of real, traditional foods- especially protein and calcium foods, and anything that's particularly nutrient dense), exercise often (this is key- a post on this topic is coming), and take my herbal nutrient supplements from Trilight Health (I'm using Tri-Iron and their pregnancy mineral formula). I'm also on a temporary, restricted diet to try to prevent having another baby with gut issues and food sensitivities, which you can read more about here.

Gardening and Preserving

Well, as I already alluded to earlier this summer, my beautiful new garden beds were a bit of a flop. Very nutrient-less, dead soil combined with a poor summer weather-wise to result in meager harvests. We did get a decent amount of garlic, heirloom tomatoes, green beans, carrots and greens, all things considering.

I've got plans to really enhance the soil this fall with composted manure and organic matter from the yard (leaves, grass, etc.) in hopes that by next spring, it will be bustling with life and ready to produce a better harvest.

I'm through with most of my summer preserving. At this point I've done:

1 double batch strawberry jam (I can't remember- maybe 8-10 pints?)
13 quarts of dill pickles
3 quarts of sweet pickles and 1 quart of sweet pickle relish
16 quarts of canned peaches
Almost 200 lbs total of frozen blueberries, strawberries and raspberries, plus a couple of large bags of dried raspberries
Over 50 pints of canned diced tomatoes
8 pints of canned tomato sauce, and probably one more batch yet to come (another 7 pints?)
A jar of dehydrated green beans, and a small jar of dehydrated zucchini
16 frozen cubes of pesto
4 pints of salsa

Still to come is 20 lbs of canned pears (my hubby's favorite), as much canned applesauce as I have time for (and maybe a small batch of apple jelly), and lots of dried apple rings. Phew!

What's Coming Up

In blog news, I've recently welcomed some amazing new writers. I am also being joined by a virtual assistant, Lindsey, who will help me keep my head on straight. I'm asked so often how I "do it all", and the answer is, I don't. I've previously had help in the form of an advertising manager (thanks, Kate, and I'll miss you!) and now I am adding significantly more hours in the form of this virtual assistant.

For those of you who will be attending the blogging conference, Relevant, I am beyond excited to announce that I will be speaking there! I attended last year and had the most fabulous time, learning and fellowship with other Christian bloggers. It's such an honor to be a speaker this year, especially alongside some ladies whom I respect immensely, not to mention rooming with my sweet Philippines teammate Emily (whose new book Grace for the Good Girl has just been released- check it out!). The conference will take place in Harrisburg, PA, October 27th-29th.

And that's what's going on in our home... how about yours?

Image by Carl M

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Gardening with Herbs 101: Harvesting Your Herbs

Meg — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 10:00:35 +0000

Written by Meg Dickey, Contributing Writer

Our weather may not be showing signs of Autumn, but our plants and gardens are certainly indicating it is time for harvesting!

If you have been consistently using your herbs throughout the summer, you may not feel you have many to preserve for the winter season (my catnip has been well-used this year, and I won't be saving hardly any!). However, you certainly don't want to wait until the first freeze to start harvesting your herbs!

frost on a basil plant

You can begin harvesting your herbs for daily use when the plant has enough foliage to ensure continued growth. Successive harvests throughout the seasons encourage bushy plants with stronger leaf growth. Plan to cut your plants back at least once during the growing season.

Harvest in the morning, after the dew dries, but before the temperatures begin to climb. This is when the essential oils of the plant are at their strongest, and therefore their most effective.

Herbs produce their highest oil concentration and flavor after the flower buds appear, but before they open. Harvest at this time for most uses. Blooming plants such basil and oregano are still suitable for other uses, which we'll talk about next time.

Harvest annual herbs until frost, making as many successive harvests as possible without damaging the plant. Don't cut too near the ground, as this will retard future growth. At the end of the season, harvest the entire plant.

Harvest perennial herbs until about one month before the frost date. Late pruning encourages tender growth that will be killed off by the frost, and plants need the regrowth to see them trough the winter.

Harvest tarragon or lavender flowers in early summer, then cut the plants to half their height to encourage fall flowering.

fennel in bloom

Harvest herb seeds (mustard, fennel) as the seed pods darken and dry, but before they burst. Secure a paper bag over the seed head to complete ripening, then cut the stem and hang the bag for further drying.

freshly harvested bloodroot

Harvest herb roots (bloodroot, ginseng, chicory, goldenseal, horseradish, Oregon grape) after the foliage fades.

Next time, we'll talk about the different ways of preserving our harvest!

What herbs are you harvesting from your gardens this year?

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Small Batch Dehydrating for the Summer Bounty

Stephanie @ Keeper of the Home — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 10:00:07 +0000

There's a woman who lives a few blocks down from me with this miraculous garden that seems to go from a freshly tilled plot to a wildly abundant gardener's delight in about one month flat (my husband keeps telling me not to be jealous because she probably uses Miracle-Gro or something of the chemical-sort).

She grows enough teepees full of green beans that I assume she must can and freeze then continually, and eat them weekly all winter and spring.

I, on the other hand, happily grow one bean teepee in my backyard garden. It produces just enough beans for us to eat them as a side dish with dinner every 2-4 days. That said, although we're green-bean-likers, I wouldn't say that we're green-bean-lovers.

(And if you don't grow or buy green beans, read on, because this can be used for other summer vegetables as well.)

Preserving in Small Batches

I wanted to figure out a way to preserve my excess beans, but had to avoid freezing this year as my freezer is literally jam-packed (ok, maybe not literally- it isn't full of jam, but rather strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, butter, and grass-fed beef, and did I mention I have 12 whole pastured chickens arriving in 5 days and not a clue where I am going to fit them?).

I settled on dedhyrating them in small batches and I am just thrilled with doing it this way. Here's why it works for me:

I can use it for the smallest amount, even just one soup bowlful.
It takes me 10 minutes flat to go from garden to dehydrator.
They don't take up freezer space.
I store them in a glass jar in my cupboard, and since they shrink down to about 1/3 their previous size they are simple to store indeed.
As long as you have a dehydrator (any kind will do), you don't need a speck of special equipment.

Ready to learn how to dehydrate small batches of vegetables?

1. Take whatever veggies you have in abundance (yes, beans, but I've also used zucchini, and you could make this work for carrots, turnips, peas, etc.).

2. Start a small pot of water boiling on the stove. (Time= 30 seconds)

3. Chop them into the size that you will use when you are cooking with them in the winter. For my green beans, that's about 1 inch pieces (to toss into soup, stew, chicken pot pie). For zucchini, I like them diced in small chunks. If you choose carrots, keep in mind that really thick circles will take a long time to re-hydrate when you are cooking with them, so thinner circles or half-circles is a better choice. (Time= 2-3 minutes)

4. Your water should be boiling by now. Toss everything into the pot and set your timer (most veggies will blanche in 2 minutes, but see this post for more information on how to blanche vegetables). (Time= 2-3 minutes)

5. Meanwhile, put some cold water and a handful of ice in a small bowl of container. (Time= the 2 minutes while veggies are on the stove)

6. When the timer goes, take the pot off the stove and pour the contents through a colander, hot water going down the drain. Immediately dump the blanched vegetables into the bowl of ice cold water. Set timer for 2 more minutes. (Time= 2 minutes)

7. Get out a dehydrator tray and once your cold-water timer goes, drain one more time and dump the contents onto your tray. Spread them out evenly. Dehydrate for about 12 hours on the vegetable setting or around 125 F degrees. (Time= 1 minute)

Total time= 9 1/2 -10 1/2 minutes

Finishing Up and Storing Your Food

After about 12 hours in the dehydrator (sometimes even less), my beans, zucchini or what-have-you has shrunk to about 1/3 of their original size and dried thoroughly (and I'm sorry I didn't take a picture of that step). They will feel quite hard, like a dry bean or a piece of uncooked pasta.

I store mine in a glass mason jar. It takes a lot of beans to fill up a jar when they're so small, so it is quite space-efficient for those with little storage space. It's just best to keep the jar out of the light to help preserve the quality of your food.

When you go to use them, just think of how much you want in your recipe and go backwards, considering how much smaller your finished product was than what you started with. For example, if I want 1 cup of chopped beans, I'll use 1/3 cup dried beans. If you think you'll forget, put a note on your jar with a sticker or piece of masking tape, reminding you of the correct ratio.

How do you preserve small amounts of food, whether it's from the garden or market?

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How to Peel Peaches and Tomatoes for Canning

Stephanie @ Keeper of the Home — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 10:00:51 +0000

Although I've been canning for 4-5 years now, it was only about 2 years ago that I learned this simple trick for peeling peaches that has made canning an easier task. I was missing out!

My 6 year old and I made this short video the other night, while peeling 40 lbs of peaches. She's behind the camera, so I apologize for a few rocky moments (but overall I thought she did pretty well!).

If you wanted to use this method for when you are canning tomatoes, it's exactly the same. I often find that tomatoes need even less time than peaches, more like 30-60 seconds. Experiment with your first couple of batches until you get the timing that seems to work well for you.

I can my peaches very similarly to how I can pears, with a few small differences:

I peel them by blanching (which you can't do with pears), as shown in the video above.
When I slice them, I don't soak them in water or in lemon juice.
I add 1 Tbsp of lemon juice to the jars, after I've put in the peaches and the syrup.
Timing is just a bit longer. 30 minutes for quarts, 25 for pints.

Rather than making a syrup with sucanat or rapadura this year (which the family generally enjoyed, but my husband found slightly too dark/caramel tasting for his preference), I made a honey syrup instead.

Light Honey Syrup for Canning Fruit
1 quart/litre of filtered water
1 3/4 cups honey
Bring to a boil in a large pot. Can easily double, triple or quadruple this recipe.

For 40 lbs of peaches, I tripled the syrup recipe and that was just about right. My end yield was 16 quarts and 7 pints, plus a few leftover peaches and 2 jars that didn't seal properly which we are eating right now.

Up to your eyeballs with preserving season?

Check out my section on preserving food, for preserving recipes, photo tutorials and general information on food preservation (note that it goes on for 4 pages, just keep clicking on Previous Entries).

Also take a look at my post Preserving Summer's Bounty: Recipes and Tutorials to Keep You Busy Until Thanksgiving. It is chock full of links to healthy, whole food preserving recipes and tutorials-- canning, dehydrating, lacto-fermentation, freezing, etc.

Do you preserve peaches? How is your summer preserving going?

Image by Stevie Rocco

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Preserving the Harvest: Sweet Fruit Chutney

Meg — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 17:58:07 +0000

by Meg Dickey, Contributing Writer

Summer, and the fruit it brings, has a way of overwhelming many of us. If you've got a pile of peaches, plums, nectarines, apricots or any other kind of fruit sitting in the middle of your table, you need to figure out a way to deal with it! One of the reasons I love this recipe is that it not only lets me preserve a little taste of ripe fruit for a few months, but it adds great probiotics to our diets during the fall and winter seasons, too - times when an extra boost of good bacteria can be the difference between sickness or not.

This chutney can be made with any type of firm fruit - our family's favorite is apples in Autumn and peaches in Summer, although some folks I know like to do a summer fruit medley with all the stone fruit available in our area this time of year. I'm planning to make some using fuyu persimmons this year, since they seem to hold their shape well. We use this as a topping for ice cream, on our oatmeal in the winter months, and spread on toast as jam. I've also seen some spoons dipped straight into the jar on occasion. ;-)

The whey in this recipe adds a distinct texture that makes the fruit look glazed. I have made this recipe dairy free before, using lemon juice to replace the whey, and it was very tart. If it's necessary to omit the whey, experiment with the flavors - I've found the lemon juice tastes better with sweeter fruit like peaches and nectarines, rather than plums, apricots, or apples.

Sweet Probiotic Fruit Chutney
[adapted from Nourishing Traditions]
3 cups chopped fresh fruit (apples, peaches, pears, firm plums or apricots, mango, papaya)
grated rind of 2 lemons
juice of 2 lemons
1-2 tablespoons natural sugar, such as rapadura or sucanat [I rarely use this, as if you're using ripe fruit, it should be sweet enough]
2 teaspoons sea salt
3/4 - 1 cup whey
½ cup crispy nuts, chopped [optional, omit if using for jam]
½ cup raisins
3 teaspoons spices [I use fresh, coarsely ground cinnamon & nutmeg usually]
Mix lemon juice, rind, rapadura, salt and whey. Combine with chopped fruit. Stir in optional nuts, raisins, and spices, and place in a wide mouth quart mason jar. Press down lightly, adding more whey (I’ve also added some fresh juice from the fruit, too) to cover the fruit. Mixture should come to 1 inch below the top of the jar. Cover tightly, and keep at room temperature for 2 days, then transfer to fridge. Use within 2 months.
Jam Variation: omit nuts and after fruit is ready for transfer to fridge, puree until smooth. Store in the fridge with a little whey or lemon juice poured over the surface to prevent discoloration. I usually make my chutney that hasn't been eaten right away into this jam, as the lactic acid continues to break down the fruit over time, changing the texture.

TIP: You can also preserve this chutney for longer than 2 months by placing in the freezer. I tried this with our apple chutney, and it worked fairly well. The texture does change, due to freezing, but it still has a great taste.

What are your favorite ways of extending the harvest this summer?

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Planning What to Preserve

Kate Tietje — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 10:00:05 +0000

Written by Kate Tietje, Contributing Writer

Are you new to preserving food -- or maybe just curious about it? Maybe you'd like to give it a shot, but don't really know where to start.

I was in your shoes last year! It was my very first year preserving food for my family. I had no idea what we would realistically eat in a year, given availability, and definitely didn't plan it as well as I could have! Many things ran out with months yet before the next season, and some things are still sitting in my pantry, hardly touched!

But I learned a lot from it, and will plan better this year. To some extent it's simply a learning process, and you will have to adjust a little each year as you figure out what your family likes (and what's available in abundance that year, if you add additional family members, as small children get bigger, and so on). Hopefully, though, you can learn from some of my mistakes!

What Should I Preserve?

Last year, I watched all my friends go strawberry picking and then go home and make (heavily white-sugar sweetened) jams and jellies. Tons of them. I was jealous! I wanted to get started on my preserving, too, and have pretty jam and jelly jars to look at.

Thankfully, I didn't. Jams and jellies just aren't something my family ever eats. We don't really serve any sandwiches or toast, and both my kids and my husband just will not eat them. It would have been a waste of time and money to have canned those.

On the other hand, I should have been freezing strawberries for smoothies, because that we do eat a lot! Which brings me to my point -- what does your family eat? And more specifically, what do they eat a lot of?

Strawberries
Blueberries
Raspberries
Peaches
Pears (often hard to find!)
Apples
Corn
Cucumbers
Zucchini
Pumpkin
Squashes
Tomatoes

There's more, of course, but those are some commonly preserved foods. They can be preserved by traditional canning (heat), lacto-fermenting, or by freezing. You can even preserve some by dehydrating!

What is your family really likely to eat, either from this list or from other seasonal offerings? We, for example, go through quite a lot of tomato sauce. Applesauce is also popular. Frozen strawberries, peaches, and blueberries (two of which I didn't even do last year) are also popular. Write down whatever it is that you think your family would eat, and how you'd like to preserve it.

Don't forget to account for different preparations, too: do you want to make both bread-n-butter pickles and dill? Or with tomatoes -- do you want sauce, salsa, tomato soup, diced tomatoes, whole peeled tomatoes, etc.? Write down each food item you would like to preserve, not just "tomatoes!"

Image by epSos.de

How Much Will Your Family Eat?

Let's be realistic. If your family generally eats through a jar of jam every month, you really don't need to do more than a dozen or so. If they love canned peaches, though, and could eat a quart or two a day if you let them, you might be wise to do 100 - 200 quarts! (I'm assuming that peaches won't be the only fruit available and so they won't really eat it daily. But if they do...take that into consideration, too.)

It's worth noting that your family may eat more of something because it's home-canned and it tastes so much better. I might buy canned peaches 4 - 5 times per year: really, almost never. But we went through the dozen jars I canned in less than two weeks because they were so delicious! Lesson learned.

They may also eat more of something because it's readily available. If you've got 4 dozen jars of applesauce in the pantry, they're not going to hesitate to grab one if they want a snack. On the other hand, if you've only got a couple, they may say, "Hey mom, can I eat this?" before digging in. I know my kids were like that about the applesauce, and could sit and eat half the jar between them in a sitting!

What do you cook with, and how do you do it?

I had planned last year that we usually served about a quart of tomato sauce per week, give or take, for "main dish" meals, like stuffed peppers. Unfortunately I forgot that I like to add it to soups a lot, make pizza, and other "small" uses. The amount I'd planned to make didn't even last us six months! I also wished, over and over, that I'd gone ahead and canned the diced tomatoes (I only did sauce and salsa) because I love to cook with those, too, and they just aren't available in glass jars. I also wished I'd done some tomato soup, so if I needed a fast lunch I could have it...without resorting to cans of who-knows-what.

Remember that you're trying to (ideally) preserve enough to get you all the way until the next preservation season...not just enough to get you through the winter! There's nothing worse than enjoying delicious, frugal food out of the pantry all winter...only to run out around April, before anything's growing yet!

You still have to eat through the spring and summer, and although fresh food is plentiful (bonus), there are things you may still want. Like that tomato sauce, or applesauce, or something else that isn't yet in season. Preserve a little more than you think you'll really need, especially if it's something that your family eats frequently.

Here's our example, of what we preserved last year (and how it 'measured up'):

40 quarts of applesauce (that was *about* right, maybe a little low)
12 pints of apple pie filling (most of that is still in the pantry, so we won't do it again)
32 quarts of tomato sauce (nowhere near enough...I'll be aiming for 75 - 80, probably)
12 quarts of peaches (lasted two weeks, so I'll be going for more like 50)
8 quarts of pears (lasted only a week or so...if I find good prices I'll do 50 - 60)
6 pints of sweet pickle relish (about 5 are still in the pantry...I'm the only one who likes it and I rarely eat it)
12 pints of salsa (gone, so I'll aim to do about 20 this year...but try for a better recipe)
2 gallon-sized bags of green beans (that was about right...not a family favorite, so not often used)
2 gallon-sized full bags of kale (way too much...we just rarely use it)
75 lbs. of peaches, sliced and frozen (lasted about 6 months...I'll be buying a lot of peaches this year, hoping to freeze more like 100 - 150 lbs., plus can another 100)
100 green peppers, halved and frozen (lasted about 6 months...we love these, I'll need to do at least twice as many)
3 - 4 pie pumpkins, pureed and frozen (I probably still have. I thought I'd bake bread a lot, and I...didn't)
4 - 6 zucchinis, shredded and frozen (I think I still have some. Didn't bake with this either. I'll still do quite a bit, but add it to soups and sauces instead)

Notice I did some things in quarts, some in pints. Choosing the size that best works for your purposes is important. I will can salsa, diced tomatoes, and other things I tend to use smaller amounts of in smaller jars. Foods like tomato sauce, applesauce, etc. that we use a lot of, especially a lot at once, I can in bigger containers. That's important to reduce waste, since once you open a jar, it's like anything else: it has to be refrigerated and used within a week or so.

I didn't do any corn, strawberries, blueberries, cherries, pickles, etc. at all. I had my reasons, although they weren't very good ones. The next point explains that....

Image by La Grande Farmer's Market

Be Realistic About Prices

If you haven't already, make yourself a list of the rock-bottom and common prices that you pay on your favorite items in the off-season. Whether you can buy it fresh, frozen, or canned -- know what you usually pay. And know how much that buys you. A pound? A quart jar? etc. It's imperative to know what your 'best prices' are.

Preserving food may or may not make sense, depending on your off-season prices. I didn't preserve blueberries because I'd been able to find wild, unsprayed blueberries for just $3/lb. through the 09-10 winter. The local prices were often higher than that, even for conventional! It didn't make sense. Unfortunately I lost my source in late fall and was unable to buy blueberries most of the time (because $5/lb. was the cheapest available for organic or unsprayed).

On the other hand, I could have gotten strawberries (local and low-spray) for $1.80/lb. My rock-bottom winter price is $2.75/lb. I did not think to consider this when I was making decisions, and ended up passing on the strawberries because I "thought" I should only have to pay $1/lb. or less during the season of abundance! Too bad I didn't realize how much I'd save. We go through at least 1 lb./week! This year I had a choice between local, low-spray berries for $1.90/lb. or unsprayed for $3/lb. It didn't make financial sense to go with the unsprayed, unfortunately.

Always check local prices against your off-season prices, so you know if it is worth your time! It's important to know things like how many pounds of food goes in what size jars, too. Maybe you can find a quart of organic applesauce for about $5. It takes about 3 lbs. of apples to make that much applesauce, so you would need to find the apples for $1 - $1.50/lb. (or less) to make it worth your time. I pay about $3.75/quart for organic tomato puree, plus whatever spices I add to it -- let's call it $4.25. It takes about 3 lbs. of roma tomatoes or 4 lbs. of "other" tomatoes to make a quart of sauce. That means I need to find them for $1/lb. or less. Luckily, I have been able to find $0.50 - $1/lb. on both these items, so it's worth it to me.

It's also important to be realistic on prices. Yes, on some foods you can find $0.50 - $1/lb. It's even more likely if you're able to purchase "seconds" from a farmer (overripe, funny looking, etc. but still edible). But some foods just aren't that cheap. And they do fluctuate by area. I'm lucky to find blueberries under $3/lb. even if I buy in quantity. Strawberries hover close to $2/lb. Pears do too. I skipped out on a lot of foods last year because I just had not anticipated how much it would actually cost!

I'd initially hoped to spend just $200 - $300 to preserve a whole year's worth of food. Ha ha ha. It just doesn't work that way! If I'm planning to feed my family for a year, I need to remember what I'd usually spend on (those) foods, and then maybe plan to spend 50 - 60% as much. I also needed to include the cost of the jars and lids, too, since it was my first year. I wasn't really able to find amazing deals on jars -- many of the 'second-hand' prices were the same as or more than just buying the jars new! Again, know your prices!

Final Thoughts

Sit down, write out what your family eats, how you'd like to preserve it, and run the math to find out what's really worth your time and money. Take your best guess! And in a year, you'll know if something went really fast...or didn't go at all. Then adjust and try again. It's so rewarding, even though it does take some time to do!

What do you preserve, and how did/do you decide what to do?

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5 Ways to Use Blueberries this Season

Stacy Karen — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 10:03:11 +0000

Written by Stacy K, Contributing Writer

Full of flavor, sweet and nutritious, a blueberry in season is one of summers greatest pleasures.

Fresh blueberries are delicious on their own and need no special preparation. However, they do go bad quickly, so it’s important to have a plan for using and storing them in order to minimize waste.

Below are 5 simple ways to use blueberries this season:

1. Add blueberries to food you are already preparing

Blueberries are an excellent addition to smoothies, pancakes, yogurt, muffins and as part of a fruit salad. They are also great in a bowl of oatmeal and tasty sprinkled over leafy greens.

Tip: When storing in the fridge, don't wash the berries until you need to use them. They will last longer.

2. Make Blueberry Sauce

Blueberry sauce is delicious served over pancakes, ice cream, sorbet, cakes and pies (and many other things, I'm sure!). The sauce can be made with blueberries and sucanat only, however, adding a little molasses and lime really enhances the blueberry flavor.

The follow recipe is adapted from Deborah Madison’s, Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone.

Blueberry Sauce

3 cups blueberries, washed, with stems removed
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 teaspoons molasses
¼ to ½ cup of sucanat
Juice of 1 lime

Rinse berries and place in a medium saucepan. Add molasses, cinnamon, and ¼ cup sucanat. Bring to a boil, stirring now and again. Once the berries are soft and have released their juices, taste to see if more sucanat is necessary and add accordingly. Pour in the lime juice and stir.

Strain out the berries if you like a thin syrup, or leave the berries in for a thicker sauce with texture. Serve warm or chilled.

3. Freeze or dehydrate for future use

How to Freeze Blueberries:

Freezing blueberries is my favorite way to store them. It is simple and doesn’t require any special tools.

Frozen blueberries can be thawed to make sauces and jams, and may be added to muffins in their frozen state (then they won’t make the entire muffin batter purple!). Frozen blueberries are wonderful in smoothies and are a delicious snack all on their own.

Stephanie has already demonstrated how to freeze blueberries. If you find they are freezing in a clump, lay a tea towel on a baking sheet and spread berries over it in a single layer, then place in the freezer. Once frozen solid, store blueberries in a ziplock bag or air-tight container. Freezing this way will ensure they remain loose so you can scoop out the desired amount.

How to dehydrate blueberries:

To dehydrate blueberries, wash the berries then blanch them for 30 seconds in boiling water. Blanching helps the blueberries dry more evenly and retain a softer texture. (Shannon shares more details about blanching blueberries for dehydration at Nourishing Days.)

Place berries in the dehydrator and dry at 130 to 135 degrees, until leathery. Store in an airtight container.

In some parts of the country, it is possible to dry blueberries in the sun. One commenter said she uses cookie sheets to dry blueberries on the dashboard of her car!

4. Make Blueberry Jam

Making jam is one of the most popular ways to use fresh berries. It is a simple process and takes very little time.

My preference is to make freezer jam since it retains more of the fruit’s nutritional value and taste (and it is much quicker than canning). I recently made the raw, naturally sweetened freezer jam from Passionate Homemaking, and was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was. (Note: If using honey as the sweetener, be aware that it does have a very strong flavor. If you don’t like honey, try sucanat instead.)

Whether making raw or cooked jam, be sure to check out Pomona's Pectin; natural pectin that is free of sugar and preservatives.

5. Make a Blueberry Dessert

There are many ways to serve blueberries for dessert! Simple desserts include ice cream topped with blueberry sauce and Parfaits made by layering blueberries and granola with yogurt. This fruited yogurt dessert is also quick and easy.

Other favorite blueberry desserts include baked goods such as cobblers, crisps, and pies.

The following Berry Crisp has become a new family favorite. I had to make it twice just to get a picture of it!

Summer Berry Crisp

Filling:
6 cups fresh berries, such as blueberries, blackberries, or hulled strawberries
(I used 3 cups blueberries, 2 cups strawberries, and 1 cup blackberries)
Grated zest of 1 orange
Grated zest of 1 lemon
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1/2 cup sucanat
4 tablespoons arrowroot

Crisp topping:
1 cup rolled oats
½ whole wheat pastry flour
¼ cup sucanat
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon allspice
1/3 cup sliced almonds
¼ cup butter, melted
2 tablespoons maple syrup

To make filling: Place the berries, lemon juice, orange zest, and lemon zest, in a large bowl. In a separate bowl stir together the sucanat and arrowroot, then add to the berries and toss gently to combine. Pour berry mixture into an 8 x 8 inch baking dish.

To make topping: Mix flour, oats, sucanat, allspice, and salt together in a bowl. Add melted butter and maple syrup, stir to combine. Add the nuts and stir again. Sprinkle topping over the fruit.

Bake at 375 degrees F for 30 to 35 minutes. Let the crisp cool slightly before serving to allow the juices to thicken.

What is your favorite way to eat, serve, or store blueberries? Do you have any tips to share with us?

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Dry to Preserve: A Quick Guide to Dehydration

Stacey T — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 10:00:42 +0000

Written by Stacey T, Contributing Writer

So you’ve started your garden, and other than a few minor hiccups (which always seem to happen regardless of skill or experience), things are probably going pretty well, right?

Are you preparing to preserve the fruits of your labors (pun intended)? Preserving your own food is an inexpensive and healthful way to feed your family, prepare for emergencies and practice self-sufficiency.

There are many options available to those wanting to preserve their own foods. Some experienced in food preservation use a combination of all the methods as each has it’s own benefits and limitations.

Canning is wonderful and is the only way to preserve some foods (like jams and salsas), but canning jars take up a lot of space and are breakable. Freezing foods is another great food preservation option and, if frozen properly, many foods can taste just as good as fresh, but it too requires a lot of space and if the power goes out, all that food and hard work could be lost.

A third option for food preservation is to dehydrate your foods. Dehydrated foods have long been a favorite of outdoor enthusiasts due to their compact size and weight, nutritional quality and ease in preparing and using.

Dehydrating or drying (they are essentially one in the same) is a great form of food preservation, here’s why:

It’s easy to do

Drying foods takes a little bit of prep work, to cut up fruit, blanch vegetables, etc. but once they’ve started drying, your work is practically done. The actual hands-on time required for dehydrating is minimal. Sure you may have to set it out in the sun or put it in the dehydrator for several hours, but that’s not active work.

It’s inexpensive

Dehydrating costs are one-time costs. Once the equipment is purchased, you’ll rarely need to replace it and drying your own food from the garden is basically free!

It stores well

Once cooled, dried food stores well in airtight containers like glass jars with screw-top lids or in Ziploc freezer bags. Many dehydrated foods can be stored from six months to a year, the cooler the storing temperature, the longer they will keep. If you really want your dried foods to last, store them in the freezer.

Image by Itinerent Tightwad

It doesn’t take up a lot of space

After dehydrating, food is a fraction of the size it was when it was fresh. If you want to preserve some of your garden’s bounty but don’t have a lot of storage space, dehydrating might be the best form of food preservation for you.

It’s easy to use and eat

Cooking and baking with dehydrated foods couldn’t be easier, and many dehydrated foods are simply eaten as is, as snacks. I’ve been raiding a #10 can of dehydrated apple slices the past few weeks. I just can’t get enough! If using for cooking and/or baking, most can be tossed in a pan with water and will reconstitute while cooking, like using dehydrated potatoes, carrots and onions in a soup. Others will need to soak for a few hours before using but even that takes less time than thawing.

It’s nutritious

Removing the water content reduces weight and creates a dried “superfood” which is more flavorful and nutritious, pound for pound, than fresh foods. Unfortunately any type of food preservation method will result in the loss of nutrients during processing due to heat. Dehydrated food loses some vitamin A and C while drying and vegetables especially lose nutrients because of the necessary blanching process (similar to blanching vegetables before freezing). Yet some experts maintain that drying foods is often healthier than freezing or canning because when drying, the vitamins and minerals become more concentrated. That is, you get more by eating less.

It’s versatile

From cooking with dried herbs to dried apple slices for a quick and healthy snack, there are countless ways to use dried foods. I’ll be sharing some recipes and examples for how to use dried foods later in the post.

Image by norwichnuts

What is dehydration?

When you dehydrate foods, you are drying them, removing a good portion of its moisture through evaporation. By removing moisture, you are inhibiting the growth of microorganisms and bacteria which would cause the foods to spoil. Those spoilage organisms then aren’t able to grow and multiply during storage, thus preserving the foods.

The process of dehydration isn’t rocket science, in fact, it’s really rather simple. Warm, dry air passes over, under and around the food and, in the process, pulls moisture from it.

Sun-drenched regions with low humidity, like the southwest portion of the United States, are perfect for dehydrating food with hardly any special equipment at all. In those areas, people can “sun-dry” their food, meaning drying it outdoors in the open air.

However, if the air isn’t hot or dry enough, your food may mildew or mold before it dries. For best results, often indoor drying is the best using a well-managed oven or dehydrator.

Equipment

Ovens can be used for dehydrating but must be able to go to a very low temperature, around 140*. Some ovens, like mine, don’t go that low, so in that case you’re better off using a dehydrator. A dehydrator is nothing more than a heat source with a fan to move around the warm air.

If you’re a handy and energetic cook/gardener you can make your own dehydrator.

For the rest of us, purchasing a commercial dehydrator is probably the best choice. It’s a small electrical appliance that allows you to efficiently and effectively dry food indoors.

If you are looking to purchase a food dehydrator, you will find many different options are available, and costs vary depending on features.

For a year or so, I’ve had my eye on a really nice, large dehydrator like this one. But, as of yet, my dehydration efforts don’t warrant such a large and expensive appliance. For now, I’m using a small but efficient model that cost me less than $100. I figure I’ll wear this one out with use and then upgrade. :)

Dehydrators can be found a variety of stores from kitchen shops to farm-supply stores and, of course, from retailers online.

Image by boboroshi

What can you dehydrate?

A better question would be what can’t you dehydrate. The options are nearly limitless when it comes to drying foods yet for best results, use foods that are fresh and in prime condition.

HERBS

Stephanie already wrote a great post on how to dry and grind herbs.

Making Homemade Herbal Teas

Italian Seasoning Herb Blend - Dry herbs until crackling crisp, pulverize into tiny flakes and mix together, 2 Tbl. basil, 2 Tbl. oregano, 1 Tbl. sweet majoram, 1 Tbl. thyme, 1 tea. sage. Store in an airtight glass jar in a cool, dry place.

FRUIT

Most fruit does very well dried, but especially apples, bananas, apricots and papayas.

Fruit Leather is a fun, delicious and nutritious snack for the whole family, many love it because of it’s sweet flavor and chewy texture. Made by drying thin layers of pureed fruit in the oven or dehydrator, fruit leather’s great to take along camping and hiking - or any other outing for that matter - because it travels well and is a good source of quick energy.

Blackberry Fruit Leather

Oven Fruit Leather

VEGETABLES

There are many vegetables that also do well when dried but especially tomatoes, carrots, peppers and onions.

Dried Vegetable Snacks - Many vegetables - like beets, carrots, parsnips, sweet potatoes, tomatoes and zucchini - make a delicious “chips” when cut thin, sprinkled with sea salt and then dehydrated.

Homemade Baked Potato Topper - Coarsely grind dried vegetables like onions, peppers, carrots and celery. Add sea salt and use to top baked potatoes, salads or add to soups.

Sun-dried Tomatoes

MEAT

Jerky, or salted, dried meat, has been a family favorite for centuries. Commercially produced jerky is expensive and laden with preservatives. But with the use of a low-heat oven or dehydrator, jerky can effectively be made at home.

Homemade Beef Jerky using an oven

Homemade Beef Jerky using a dehydrator

SEEDS and NUTS

For optimum nutrition, seeds and nuts should be soaked first to release phytic acid and other anti-nutrients which hinder digestion. Once soaked, seeds and nuts can return to their former, yet healthier, states by dehydrating. Once seeds and nuts have gone through this process, they’re then called Crispy Seeds and Crispy Nuts.

Crispy seeds and nuts

Resources:

How to Dry Foods by Deanna DeLong.

And check out the Drying sections in these great food preservation books:

Preserving Summer’s Bounty: A Quick and Easy Guide to Freezing, Canning, Preserving and Drying What You Grow. A Rodale Garden Book. Edited by Susan McClure.

Putting Food By: The Classic Work on the Best Ways to Can, Freeze, Pickle, Dry, Cure and Preserve by Janet Greene, Ruth Hertzberg and Beatrice Vaughan.

What are your favorite dried foods? Have you tried drying them yourself?

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Preserving Food with the Lactic-Acid Fermentation Method: Sauerkraut Tutorial

Sharon Kaufman — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 10:00:33 +0000

Written by Sharon Kaufman, Contributing Writer

The original cabbage patch kid...

For as long as I can remember, I've loved sauerkraut. As a small child, my mom served it on a regular basis with roast and mashed potatoes. I would scoop out a hole in my mashed potatoes, fill it in with sauerkraut and then dish on some gravy. Oh, what heaven for my taste buds!

Enter Grandmother's method

Years later my mom started making her own sauerkraut. She told me how healthful it was and that it was the method that her German mother and grandmother and their generations beyond had always used to make sauerkraut.

Demonstrating, Mom started by shredding numerous heads of cabbage, sprinkling salt onto each new layer of cabbage as it was packed into her three-gallon crock. She then placed a plate on top of the cabbage weighted down with a plate-sized rock and let it set. Occasionally she removed what she called "scum" from the surface of the liquid that covered the cabbage. I found this to be quite distasteful and wondered how safe this "new-old" method could be.

Thanks, but "No thanks"

At the time, I didn't understand what the benefit was in pickling cabbage like this and since my mom couldn't really explain it to me, I continued to eat the canned sauerkraut I had grown up enjoying.

In fact, being ignorant of the "lacto-fermentation" process, I thought that eating Mom's sauerkraut would be a risky thing since it wasn't canned in vinegar, heat-processed, sterilized and vacuum sealed - in other words, dead. After all, my mom herself had taught me how to "safely" preserve foods by either the water-bath method or by pressure canning.

Sauerkraut comes full circle

Fast forward to seven years ago. My mom came to live with us. At about that same time my husband and I began eating a traditional diet and I soon discovered that one of the most healthful elements of such a diet was lacto-fermented foods. These foods keep the digestive system populated with billions of beneficial bacteria, arming the body with a well-functioning and protective immune system.

Needless to say, my mom was thrilled! This is what she had instinctively known, but couldn't explain to me during all her years of kraut making. So we'd come full circle now that I had taken up my mother's, grandmother's, great-grandmother's - who knows how far back - method of making pickled cabbage.

Lacto-fermentation - not just for cabbages

All kinds of fruits and vegetables can be preserved by this method. Recipes for cucumbers, carrots, beets, green beans, pearl onions, radishes, Swiss chard ribs, tomatoes, turnips, zucchini, eggplant and snow peas are but a few of the vegetables featured in the book Preserving Food Without Freezing or Canning. And the variety of fruits is equally diverse - plums, peaches, pears, apples, mango, papaya, lemons, raisins, oranges, apricots, berries and more. Nourishing Traditions Cookbook features recipes for all of these fruits.

A multitude of wonderful benefits

Prolongs the life of food

The most obvious benefit is that lacto-fermentation preserves food. Lactic acid is a natural preservative which safely inhibits bacteria that causes food to spoil. When lactic acid is present, putrefying bacteria isn't. It's as simple as that. The good bacteria keeps any bad bacteria from invading.

Safe Food

You will never have to wonder about botulism when preserving foods with lacto-fermentation since that deadly bacteria only grows in a vacuum (heat-preserved foods are vacuum-sealed). If you happen to have a failed batch of pickles, for instance, your nose will quickly detect the spoilage. It will smell so bad, disposal will be the only option, never to come anywhere close to your dinner plate.

Increases the nutrient value of food

Foods preserved with lactic acid are not only completely safe to eat - this knowledge disarmed my fears that I'd had during those years I wouldn't eat my mom's sauerkraut - but nutrient levels are enhanced in wonderful ways (see next paragraph). This is the opposite or conventionally preserved foods (processed by heat and/or vinegar means), which strip foods of their vitality.

Sally Fallon, in her cookbook, Nourishing Traditions, tells us that lacto-fermented fruits and vegetables have "numerous advantages beyond those of simple preservation"...

enhanced digestibility
increased vitamin levels
numerous helpful enzymes
antibiotic and anti-carcinogenic substances
lactic acid which promotes the growth of healthy flora throughout the intestine
hydrogen peroxide and small amounts of benzoic acid

Prevents disease

In his book, Wild Fermentaion, Sandor Katz, referring to Captain James Cook when on his second round-the-world voyage in the 1770s, tells us that

sixty barrels of kraut lasted for twenty-seven months, and not a single crew member developed scurvy, which previously had killed huge numbers of the crews of long sea voyages.

Amazingly simple to prepare

Another wonderful benefit is the simplicity of preparation. For 25 years I labored intensively, sterilizing jars and lids, standing over huge boiling pots at the height of summer heat to produce thousands of jars (an average of 500 jars per summer) of devitalized foodstuffs by conventional canning. It was literally the hardest work I've ever done.

Lacto-fermenting foods has been a breath of fresh air for me. By comparison, it is the easiest, most satisfying work I do with food, producing the most nutritionally optimum, delicious fare.

Try it out! Use the following tutorial to make some nourishing and delicious sauerkraut.

A Sauerkraut Tutorial

Supplies you'll need: Wide-mouth quart mason jar, two regular seals (the flat part of the lid), one half-pint jar that will fit into the wide-mouth mason jar, utensil for tamping down cabbage (look at the photos below to see the utensil I use), wooden cutting board, sharp knife for shredding cabbage, large mixing bowl, measuring spoons and a cloth to cover jars.

Ingredients you'll need: 1 1/4 - 1 1/2 pound cabbage, 1 tablespoon unrefined sea salt, 10 juniper berries or 2 teaspoons caraway seeds or several bay leaves (these are all optional), filtered water (non-chlorinated), extra salt.

Select only organic cabbage, either red or green (or mix the two colors for pink sauerkraut). Conventionally grown produce often results in an inferior product.

For quart jars (wide-mouth), select a head of cabbage that weighs about 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 pounds.

Cut cabbage in half from the core to the top. Remove the core, if desired. Then shred the entire cabbage finely or coarsely, whatever your preference. Coarse shredded cabbage is an option since cabbages can even be pickled whole with the lacto-fermentation process.

After shredding the cabbage, put a large handful of it in the bowl and sprinkle about 1/4 of the one tablespoon of salt over it.

Continue in this fashion until all the cabbage is in the bowl and all of the salt has been sprinkled over it. The salt will begin to pull juices out of the cabbage. If you are using caraway seed, add it to the cabbage at this point and mix it in well.

Lay cabbage, a little at a time, in mason jar. Tamp down with an appropriate utensil (I found the one in the photos at a thrift shop for under a dollar). This process pulls the juices out of the shredded cabbage. If you're using bay leaves or juniper berries, lay them in on the layers of cabbage. As you lay in more cabbage continue to tamp it down. You should not have any difficulty getting all of the cabbage into your quart jar.

For this jar of sauerkraut I added juniper berries.

If liquid level is low in jar, add several tablespoons full of filtered water with a pinch of salt stirred in to raise the liquid level in the jar. Then place the two jar seals, rubberized side up, on top of the cabbage, side by side to hold cabbage under liquid.

Fill the half-pint jar with water and set on top of the seals to hold the cabbage under the liquid. Press down on the small jar to raise the level of the liquid. Cover both jars with a muslin (or similar) cloth to keep contents free of dust, fruit flies, etc.

If the liquid level is still not above the cabbage, check it every few hours, pressing down on the small jar. The liquid level should rise a little more each time. After 24 hours if cabbage is still above the liquid, add a few more tablespoons full of filtered water with a pinch of salt stirred in.

As you can see in this photo, the liquid is low in the jar.

But after about 12 hours, enough liquid had been produced to cover the cabbage. Keep jar covered and at room temperature for about three days, then cap tightly with a seal and ring band and transfer to refrigerator. Though your sauerkraut can be eaten immediately, for maximum flavor, wait about a month.

The end product - a jar of cabbage transformed into nutrient dense, delicious sauerkraut, ready for the cabbage patch kid to devour.

Since this is a food with beneficial bacteria, the optimum way to serve it is cold or at room temperature. Heating it kills off all the good stuff, so think of eating it as you would a pickle - cold and crunchy. YUM!

Resources

More info and recipes here and also here and a few more here.

On my blog, Franziska's Pantry, I have five very interesting videos posted. Love this!

A video by Sandor Katz

Nourishing Traditions Cookbook

Wild Fermentation Live Culture Foods

Food Preserving Without Freezing or Canning

Simple Ways to Improve Your Digestion and Gut Health

Have you experimented with making your own lacto-fermented foods? What successes (or flops - we all learn from the imperfections) have been your experience?

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Plan & Plant Now for Sustainability, Freedom, and a Backyard Revolution

Shannon — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 10:09:26 +0000

I am not an expert gardener and have only spent the last few years taking a stab at preserving what we eat and eating what we preserve. Every year, though, I grow more and more excited because every year we are learning, producing, and preserving more.

I have learned that amazing things can happen when you simply choose to work at producing and preserving foods rather than spending time doing other things. I have been greatly encouraged and informed by the new book Surviving Off Off-Grid. I have watched the reaction to this book's release and I believe that people are hungry (pun intended) for a different way of life.

Why Does It Matter?

Our family desires to live a simple, debt-free, agrarian way of life. This will allow my husband to be at home alongside the children and myself, working for our basic needs with our own two hands. More importantly, though, it allows us to rely directly on God's providence for our very basic necessities without the distraction and corruption so prevalent in our consumer-based society.

It is our family's goal to be producers rather than consumers. While we currently reside just outside of a large city, we chose to rent an older duplex with a backyard available for gardening and while my husband works an 8-5 desk job, he also does a lot of the manual labor of gardening and I do garden upkeep, harvesting, preserving, and cooking.

By beginning our journey with food production, learning to buy from local farmers and eat seasonally, and learning the most sustainable methods of food preservation, we have learned that it is possible to start at zero and work your way to grocery store independence.

It Doesn't Have to Be All or Nothing

Like I said before, I am not that experienced of a gardener. With all of our other responsibilities we have not taken the time to learn the intricacies of organic gardening. We lost our entire cabbage crop (12 giant heads) last year to pests and just when our four cucumber plants looked like I'd be pickling dozens of quarts, they up and turned yellow and completely died on us. It was a sad day.

So we do what we can. We tear up ground with hand tools, add some compost, plant some seeds, water when there's time, and wait to see what happens. Last year we were able to grow much of our own produce needs for the summer, but I relied on local farmers for most of what I preserved.

Three Sustainable Methods of Food Preservation

In my book Simple Food {for winter} I go into detail about the benefits of choosing these three sustainable preservation methods:

Lacto-Fermentation.

If you would have told me five years ago that we would have fallen in love with fermented vegetables I would have said you were off your rocker. I have written an article for beginners, I have posted recipes for salsa and kimchi, I have shared 5 tips for delicious lacto-fermented dill pickles, I shared my sauerkraut method in Simple Food {for winter}.

I can not say enough about how easy and sustainable this method is, not to mention how incredibly beneficial fermented vegetables are not only for your digestive health, but your immune system and your energy as well. And these things keep for a very long time in cold storage - see mine at 7 months old.

Dehydration.

How hard can it be to chop fruits & vegetables and throw them into a dehydrator? Not very and that's why I'm a fan. When I've got 45 zucchinis staring me in the face, I dehydrate them. When we've picked 10 pounds of blueberries at the local farm, I dehydrate them. When our turnips showed signs that our makeshift root cellar wasn't going to keep them as long we hoped, I dehydrated them. When I came home with a ridiculous amount of apples from my father's trees, I dehydrated them. And then I made pie out of them in January.

Root Cellaring.

Dig a hole deep enough to go below the frost line and in a way that keeps water out and you have a root cellar. We kept potatoes in our miniature root cellar this past winter for a few months. All my husband did was dig a hole, fasten some plastic around the opening to keep it dry, and drop our bushel of potatoes in the bottom. This experiment wasn't entirely successful, but it did work for a short time, and will have us digging a root cellar as soon as we get on some land.

All three of these can be done with or without electricity, do not require you to stand over a boiling kettle in August, and preserve and actually increase the the nutrition of the foods you are preserving.

I canned tomatoes and apple butter this past summer. The rest of the food was preserved with one of the above methods and we were able to feed our family without a single grocery store trip for two months. And we will still have enough dehydrated and fermented vegetables to last us through our earliest spring harvests.

Why Now?

Side note: While I'd love to go on for hours on this topic, there is simply not enough space. For more on how I use dehydrated, fermented, and root cellared foods for nutrient-dense winter meals check out Simple Food {for winter} and look out for the spring edition in April.

It is early spring (very early for us northerners), and yet here I am talking about preserving food. What you plant (and plan for) now, though, will determine how you eat next January. You can start fermenting radishes and dehydrating spring onions and even spinach if you have more than you can eat.

After these early crops have been harvested you can add some more compost, throw in some cucumber and tomato seeds and every week that you harvest or head to your farmers market you can put aside a jar or two of fermented or dehydrated foods. Grow winter squash, bulb onions, garlic, potatoes, turnips, apples, and beets for your root cellar.

Every seed you plant is a step towards sustainability. Every jar you ferment is freedom from more consumerism. Truly this newness of spring is the time to start a revolution... right in your own backyard.

What are you planning & planting for your revolution?

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