What Are You Preserving, and How Are You Doing It? (2006 - 2016)

[Nancy in Pátzcuaro]

See also this thread on Seed Savers Exchange forum:

http://forums.seedsavers.org/showthread.php?t=434

This is in regard to making one's own paprika. Basically it's nothing more than drying the peppers completely and then grinding them, seeds and all, in a coffee mill or spice grinder. Some people use more than one kind of dry red chile to make a more complex blend. The thread digresses into how to grow chiles and which varieties, which is understandable in a gardening forum. But the basic idea is quite simple. Plus I like the idea of putting a couple of big buttons in the jar that you shake to break up any caking of the powder.

N.

[Ttogull]

I have bought frozen roasted New Mexico chilies and had thence shipped. I have bought cases of NM chilies, roasted them myself over smoke, and frozen. I have gone into the local fields to pick my own red jalapeños and chocolate poblanos, roasted them, and frozen them. I have directly frozen de arbol, fatalli, red savina, chocolate habanero, etc. etc. They are all good until the next season. The texture is not quite right for a fresh salsa, but they work in a lot of roasted salsas, as well as any cooked dish I can think of. Other methods are ok, but IMHO freezing best preserves the characteristics of the pepper. It really depends on the application. My needs work better with frozen.

@Nancy. It's easy to make chipotles. A chipotle is simply a smoked pepper ( not necessarily an jalapeño). I simply throw a pepper on the smoker when I am doing other stuff. You can smoke it all the way to dry, and turn into powder if you want. Or just part way and add adobo sauce (recipes abound on the net). I don't know why, but pretty much everyone I know thinks the heat of a pepper is massively intensified by smoke. The best tasting one I have done is a smoked chocolate habanero, but I think I cried from pain/pleasure.

[fvandrog]

How about pickling them? Poke a hole in each one with a knitting needle or the tip of a knife, then stuff into a jar and top with white vinegar. The vinegar will get hot, making it a useful condiment....and you can fish out the peppers, chop, and add tangy heat to your stir fries.

That's my favorite method as well; alternatively I preserve the chillies in oil -- though apparently the topic starter looks for other methods.

Welcome to eGullet, fvandrog!

How do you preserve chilies in oil and be sure they're safe from, say, botulism? Or is that not an issue for chilies as it is for garlic?

Edited to add: Welcome also to Liz Ayers! What a great first topic!

I checked a bit around, and it seems that chilies are definitely not save from botulism. Regardless, many preservation books don't seem to worry and put the chilies straight into the oil as I did.

I have also seen some recipes where the chilies are first boiled for 10 minutes in vinegar, the heat and acid together killing any botulism spores that might reside on the chilies. One recipe even recommended boiling the chilies first in vinegar and subsequently have them simmer in the oil for 20 minutes.

To play it save without going overboard, I intend to boil chilies in vinegar before conserving them in oil next time. Unfortunately, I guess I won't be getting my hands on nice chilies until summer is almost over.

[nasi goreng]

You could dry them, and then use them for thai red curry,

Or process in the kitchen machine, or blender or pestle and mortar and freeze in ice cube trays. Nice handy portions whenever you need them.

Or freeze them whole,

Or, and thats my favourite, make them into a nice sambal (chili paste). Check this link for some good ideas: http://asiancook.eu/indonesian/sambalans. My favourites are sambal badjak and sambal goreng :-)

[hummingbirdkiss]

I found a wild plum tree …stripped it from the hood of my car with a rake and brined them to make the most delicious substitute for olives you can imagine ..then I put half in the fridge to use as "olives" the other half went into the dehydrator to dry out and make a form of crack seed.

 

my stove blew up yesterday from a gas leak and my oven is dead ..and I really am not a big freezer but  I adore canning and am not seeing it in the near further (DIY remodel with no appliances to be purchased until the end..it will be an interesting summer of cooking! and preserving) 

 

before the oven blew up I made gooseberry jam and chutney from this years gooseberry harvest 

 

tomorrow half of the  garlic scape harvest is going to become kimchi 

 

I may dehydrate some kimchi my friend did it and brought it hiking once it was good

 

also I am making a lot of fruit leather as well as condiment leather like chutney and ketchup leather for buyers and sandwiches on the road 

 

so we will dehydrate, smoke, pickle, brine and ferment a lot this year.  not much canning and freezing  while the kitchen is being remodeled 

[Deryn]

I seem to go through phases - by season and by year - where I get on a kick of either canning (both water bath and pressure), dehydrating and now freeze-drying various things from the garden or from the local area.

 

Last year I made rose hip jelly (as my mother used to do in the Yukon - it brought back so many memories for me) for the first time in eons. This year I will probably primarily concentrate on freeze-drying but should I luck into some juicy fruit (perhaps wild apples, or, if I can catch the last of the rhubarb when I get back up north soon) I may make some applesauce, or apple jelly and put up some rhubarb. I may also dehydrate a few things from my garden.

 

I will be freeze-drying lobster and local shrimp (and some scallops - a friend of a friend, way out west, wants some Digby scallops and I think this form is the only way to get them to her 'fresh' - sort of).

 

I have in the past pickled vegetables but I found I forgot to open the jars in a timely manner so unless I can think of people to give to as gifts, I probably won't do any this year. Mind you, I would absolutely love some garlic scapes right now.

[ElainaA]

 

 

Last year I made rose hip jelly (as my mother used to do in the Yukon - it brought back so many memories for me) for the first time in eons.

Deryn - I find rose hips very interesting. One of my wild rose bushes in full of them right now. How do you process the hips? Everything i have read sounds intimidating but I would love to try.

Elaina

[radtek]

I do tomatoes which get stewed to make sauce. Then frozen in containers. Also, any manner of braised greens from the garden get divided up and frozen. Blanch and freeze broccoli. 

 

Onions are harder to put by in my area so they need dehydrating. They pickle well, but must be eaten quickly so it's almost not worth the effort. 

 

Mixed success with peppers. Pickle, or make chilie salsa quemada and freeze.

 

Meats I do charcuterie. During the holiday season pork butt goes on sale for tamales. I'll buy 4-5 of them and store in the deep freeze for sausage making throughout the year.

 

Basically what comes out of the garden, and that's expanding.

[Deryn]

Rose hip jelly is very easy to make. I (as I usually do) just 'wing' it these days when it comes to amounts of rose hips, water, sugar, etc. but there are many recipes on the web (here is one: http://homecooking.about.com/od/jellyrecipes/r/blfruit14.htm.) Most don't vary too much except in quantities.

 

Be sure to only use rose hips from unsprayed plants - I get mine along the shore where there is a mass of wild roses. Few people seem to know that they make a lovely jelly so no one picks them.

 

The process is fast and simple:

 

1) Boil up a quantity of rose hips with about half as much water till they are soft. That doesn't take very long - only a few minutes.

 

2) Mash the resultant mix and put it through a jelly bag to get a clear liquid, which is usually slightly yellowy-brown, though sometimes it may have a pink tinge - depends on the type of roses I think. Mom used to hang her bag for several hours as I recall to make sure she got all the goodness out and kept the jelly clear but you can hurry it up a bit by gently pressing on the rose hip mash - though the jelly may be cloudier if you do.

 

3) Measure the rose hip juice and add pectin powder according to its volume. The linked recipe suggests 1 package for 4 cups of juice - depending on how much juice you have you may have to play around with this a bit. My mother didn't have pectin powder so she used apple skins and pips boiled down and strained. Pectin powder is easier but less flavourful of course.

 

4) Add sugar - up to 1 1/4 cups for each cup of juice (for taste and jelling purposes). I don't like it too sweet so I cut the corners on that addition as much as possible but if you cut it I suggest you do a gel test before putting in jars to be sure it will set. You may need more pectin if you reduce the sugar.

 

5) Add some lemon juice to cut a bit of the sweetness and round out the flavour.

 

6) Boil the mixture for about a minute (be sure all the sugar is well dissolved) and pour into jelly jars.

 

When I was young in the Yukon, we didn't have access to fresh citrus very often so Mom would make us use this jelly on our toast as often as she could to provide us with Vitamin C, especially during the long winters. Rose hips are high in Vitamin C but heaven knows how much is really left after processing it into jam.

[ElainaA]

Thanks Deryn - I am going to try this. Do you pick the rose hips when they are green or wait until they turn red? I usually follow Christine Ferber's (Mes Confitures) method of using green apple jelly instead of commercial pectin - sort of like your mother's use of apple skins and cores - my mother did that too. I still have a couple of jars left from last years batch.Since there is sugar in the apple jelly you need to reduce the sugar in the recipe if you do this. Sadly, due to some very powerful storms here, the ground under the apple trees is covered with tiny green apples so I'm not sure if I'll have enough for a batch this year.

 

Elaina

[Deryn]

Wait till the rose hips turn red.

 

Can you try using those tiny windfall apples to see what they produce? I haven't done that myself but perhaps they can still be used, even that tiny and immature. Before they rot, pick up some and plop them in a pot with a bit of water.

Edited June 17, 2015 by Deryn (log)

[sparrowgrass]

I roast my tomatoes,with  peppers, onions, garlic and celery, puree the veggies and can for tomato sauce.  My idea of fast food is to brown some hamburger or Italian sauce, mix in a jar of sauce, and serve over angel hair.  Dinner in 15 minutes.  I also can some plain tomato puree, and freeze small tomatoes whole.  I haven't purchased a tomato or tomato product for last 14 years.  Except for ketchup, I don't use much of that.

 

 

I also can green beans, pickled garlic, dilly beans, pears, different jellies from wild and tame fruit, salsa and pickled jalapenos.  

[Deryn]

When I was very young (younger than when I was in the Yukon), in the 50's, we lived in Toronto and I don't recall my mother 'putting anything up' - pretty well all our food came out of cans or the freezer case at the supermarket.

 

But, when we moved up north, suddenly - possibly because there was a scarcity of fresh stuff anyway up there (everything had to be trucked or flown in so prices were high, quality was lacking and supply was meager, especially in winter) or perhaps places like the Yukon just inspire people to learn to 'live off the land' - my mother began learning about and preparing many foods from foraged plants - and my father began hunting - for rabbits, grouse, moose - and fishing.

 

What they did back then probably changed me forever - though other than berry picking with Mom and a bit of hunting and fishing with Dad, I didn't do much of the actual prep (save for being the only child in the family that loved to skin/de-feather/gut the spoils of hunting and fishing) and wasn't that much into kitchen capers as a teenager. I recall my mother bustling around in the kitchen (and I ate the proceeds of that activity) but I didn't stand by her side and pull on her apron strings to learn how to do it myself. Something filtered through though - even if it was just a smell and/or taste memory. I have since spent my life trying to bring back those memories perhaps but, as important, seemed to be making sure there was always extra in the cupboards (just in case .. of some emergency) whether I lived in a large city or a rural area. It became a habit - and not one that I wanted to completely lose even when things became more available to me via more commercial means.

 

So, when the seasons permit, I seek out (or grow) things, not from the grocery store, that I can 'put up' myself. There is such a satisfaction from having done that myself and there is also the peace of mind knowing I have a full larder and precisely where the food came from. Not only that, but since so many do not do this kind of thing - even in rural areas these days - I can give 'gifts from the heart' rather easily to those who don't - and many appreciate them. And now that I live alone - and produce/meat packages often seem so scaled for those in larger families - it is once again becoming necessity so I don't waste as much as I feel I must buy when I make the long trek to town.

 

Thank you, Elaina, for starting this thread. A topic like this always gets my juices running again - and reminds me that the seasons are fleeting .. and I need to prepare.

[ElainaA]

 

So, when the seasons permit, I seek out (or grow) things, not from the grocery store, that I can 'put up' myself. There is such a satisfaction from having done that myself and there is also the peace of mind knowing I have a full larder and precisely where the food came from. Not only that, but since so many do not do this kind of thing - even in rural areas these days - I can give 'gifts from the heart' rather easily to those who don't - and many appreciate them. 

 

Exactly - I could not have put this so eloquently.

I would add that for me it is not only immensely satisfying put such fun. Not everything I put up comes from my garden - I do not grow fruit except for  apple trees, gone native from a long gone orchard, and raspberries so the fruit for my jams and chutney come from the farmer's market or a pick-it-yourself farm nearby. Last year, after a horrible experience with septoria in my tomatoes I had to buy 2 bushels from a farm to can ketchup, chutney, salsa and whole tomatoes. I refer to my summer preserving as a case of seasonal obsessive disorder - subtype preserving. (Around November, the subtype candy making strikes.)

I am very careful - I make faux-V8 juice and a lovely tomato-roasted garlic sauce but I freeze them rather than can since they are low acid due to all the vegetables and I do not have a pressure canner. I'm not sure they would be safe even then. I give a lot of stuff away and I do not want to make anyone sick. 

I'm not sure what will be next this year - possible more strawberries or soon cherries. And I am watching for the rose hips to turn red.

Elaina

[kayb]

I grew up on a small farm in the South, where we raised almost everything we ate, and summers were made for canning and preserving vegetables and fruit from the garden and orchard. We also raised pigs and cattle -- not a big operation, really just a couple of animals a year for our own use. About all we bought at the grocery were basics -- flour, sugar, coffee, some cereals -- and for some reason, bread (Mama was not a bread-baker other than on special occasions), so I grew up "puttin' up." Then I grew up and moved to the city and stopped.

 

A couple of years ago, 40-plus years removed from the canning and preserving of my youth, I ventured into canning some jams and jellies, brought on mostly because I'd come by a surfeit of ripe figs, and I couldn't stand to see them go to waste -- so I made fig jam. Not too long after that, I was visiting "up home" and noted the pear tree was bearing fruit on only two branches -- so I picked up windfall pears, took them home, and made pear preserves. Last year, I widened the scope to apple butter and pear butter, and also canned green beans, several bushels of tomatoes (ripe tomato chow-chow, marinara sauce, chili base, and just plain tomatoes), and I froze several pints of corn as well as field peas. 

 

This year, it's going to be blackberries, more corn, more peas more green beans, more tomatoes, some peaches. I probably have enough pears to last the rest of my natural life.

 

I'd love to get into dehydrating and freeze-drying. I'm limited on freezer space (I have a small chest freezer, but I generally fill it with a bulk beef purchase from a local farmer every fall). And I've always wanted to try charcuterie. It's on the list....

[rotuts]

I grew up in Los Altos, CA.  back then it didn't have sidewalks, mostly  and had some dirt roads.

 

the next town south had mostly dirt roads.

 

not now, BTW

 

but it did have apricot orchards.  and the house I first lived in had 1 1/2 acre of apricot trees.

 

its very difficult to get and taste a ripe apricot.  they ripen at about the same time, and you have 1 week, maybe 10 days to get a really really ripe

 

one.

 

so you dried them  we dried them  by hand.  in flats.

 

not being near an apricot tree for some time,  Im pretty much addicted to California dried apricots.

 

TJ's has them   you might notice they are fairly expensive these days.

 

most of the apricot trees are long gone in Los Altos, and the many towns S of there

 

they grow Silicon now.

 

thats not bad, and not good, its just the way it is.

 

doing something yourself  is not so much additives, nutrition, etc

 

it adds something to your life you can't get another way.

 

there are not words for this, 

 

time for some Fizz and a Nap.

 

BTW  Im a big big fan of the "Curious Imperative"

Edited June 18, 2015 by rotuts (log)

[kayb]

For me, home-canned and home-frozen food is simply better than what I can get at the grocery store freezer case, canned aisles or produce section during the off season. Particularly tomatoes. There's a million dollars worth of difference in home-canned tomatoes and San Marzanos, or any other top-rated brand. 

 

Plus, it makes me feel and remember the connection with my mother, who's been gone these past 20 years. And the generations before her for whom "puttin' up" was a necessity, not an option.

[Thanks for the Crepes]

rotuts,

 

The last place we lived in Chula Vista, CA had an apricot tree (and a lemon tree, hibiscus, bird of paradise, fuchsia, a ten-foot-tall poinsettia, ...). I remember the perfume of the apricot fruit when they came ripe, and I remember my mom putting up apricot preserves for us to eat throughout the year.

 

I was SO excited when I saw seasonal fresh apricots start to appear in southeast grocers, and gladly paid the steep price a few times, but was bitterly disappointed, because the grocery store variety are apparently picked green and never develop the perfume. Seems I'm relegated to dried apricots and my memories. 

 

Next time you post in the TJ's thread, would you mind posting about your experience of apricot products? I know they have good dried both sulfured and unsulfured last time I checked.

 

kayb,

 

Some of the best-tasting preserves I ever put up were made of ripe pears from our backyard tree in VA. Did you know wasps love ripe pears too, and break through the skin themselves, or take advantage of bird pecks? You have to beat them to the fruit.  I just cut out the compromised spots. Pears are one fruit that will ripen pretty well rock hard from the grocery, but still not as good as tree-ripened to me. I don't believe I've ever seen pear preserves in a store, and that's a pity.

 

When I lived with my grandparents in Louisiana, we put up all the veggies from the big garden in shelf stable mason jars for winter. I was on sous chef duty, doing a lot of weeding, picking, peeling and prepping, while the adult women did the actual jar sterilization and canning. Then in late autumn, we'd all butcher chickens, ducks, hogs, and male yearling or so cattle to put up for the extended family freezers. An aunt who raised rabbits on her farm would have folks out to her place for a butchery party complete with huge feast afterward, and everyone would take rabbit home for their freezers. It wasn't illegal back then to do all the killing and butchering on your own property. This was all old school free range meat, and the best I probably have hope of ever eating in my life. This was true even after retrieval from the freezer.

 

When I had a big garden in Memphis, I would usually freeze the produce, because it tastes better to me, and I thought it safer. I would pickle shelf stable home grown jalapenos, the hottest I've ever tasted. I always reduced the ripe tomatoes into sauce to take up less space in the freezer.

 

Another thing I would do is set sheets of plywood up on cinder blocks in a sunny spare room and put all the green or unripe tomatoes on them right before the first frost. In Memphis' climate with irrigation, I always had tons (not literally, but a couple hundred pounds at least) of tomatoes I would lose to frost damage otherwise. I love fried green tomatoes as much as the next southern gal, but there was no way two people were going to eat up all that bounty that way. It turns out that healthy, well nourished, tomatoes, even when picked green and put in a sunny room like I did will ripen a few at a time to nice and red with lovely flavor over a period of about three months. Bonus: you can enjoy fried green tomatoes anytime during this period. The indoor-ripened ones were much better-tasting than styromates from the grocery, and almost lasted until spring. I did turn them over on the boards every few days, checking for any bad spots, and those got used or tossed on the compost pile. If you have a warm, sunny place where you can put your unripe tomatoes on a semi-absorbent surface before frost takes them, I highly recommend it.

 

Also, if you live up north with an unheated basement like we did in Vermont for a while, that's a very good place to store bushels of apples over the winter after the autumn harvest. I love McIntosh, and they last decently in a Vermont cellar for several months without becoming mealy. Again, go through them occasionally, because we all know what they say about one bad apple. 

 

When we lived near this apple orchard before they became over-priced tourist attractions, you used to be able to get a bushel of windfalls for $2 at harvest time. We would make pies and put them in the deep freeze for family consumption over the winter. We'd freeze them unbaked, and pop them into the oven after cooking dinner, and they made a delicious dessert.

[Arey]

I grow most of my own herbs, except for tarragon which I've given up on and rosemary because just when the plants are really doing well and growing, along comes another record cold January or February and it's start all over again.  The parsley I freeze in the Fall, and the basil which I turn into pesto with all the ingredients except cheese and freeze in small portions.  I also cook meals which would serve 4 and freeze 3 of the portions for the future, and I always make enough rice to freeze at least two portions.

My mother was very big on buying fresh produce, strawberries, green beans peaches and such and freezing them for the future, and buying things and putting them aside for the future.  After getting home with the shopping she'd say "Now comes the worse part putting everything away".  After I've put a lot of things away for the future, I get this nice feeling of accomplishment and doing something sensible and worthwhile, such as a woodpecker that's stuffed as many pinon nuts into a cactus that it can, or a chipmonk with an overflowing stash of nuts in its burrow must feel.. I do it because I enjoy doing it,

I think she did it because she got married and started a family during the depression, and she had to do it when she had the money to do it, because she never knew when there wouldn't be any  the money to do it.  Like many housewives of her class and generation her motto was "Make do".  Some were proud of how good they were at "making do" others got depressed or anxious over always having to "make do"

Edited June 18, 2015 by Arey (log)

[Shelby]

How I love reading through a topic like this.  Hearing about everyone's life experiences and past generations.

 

My grammy LOVED apricots.  I wonder if she ever got to taste a truly fresh picked one like Rotuts and Thanksforthecrepes have.

 

Count me among the crowd that gets immense satisfaction knowing that I've got food stored.  I really like knowing that on a cold, snowy day I can have a taste of summer.

 

You guys all know that I'm a big canner and "put'er-upper" ( I have never heard it called putting food by before--I learn something new here all the time   ).  

 

Kansas summers can be brutally hot and humid, but that sure makes for some good homegrown tomatoes.  Tomatoes are the one thing that I grow that I never ever have found to be as tasty elsewhere.  Even another Kansas garden....their tomatoes taste different than mine.  Now, mind you, they would probably say THEIR tomatoes were the tastiest.     I guess I like my soil.     I try to can over 100 quarts of 'maters a summer, but that doesn't always happen.  This summer is looking good, though.  I use a lot of my peppers, onions, basil and eggplants to make spaghetti sauce that I freeze.  I used to make huge batches of salsa and can that.  I haven't done that for a few years.  Maybe I'll have enough to that soon.  I pickle a lot of cucumbers and can them up.  We still have 4 quarts left from last year, so we best get to using those up because I'll be crocking cucumbers soon.

 

I canned some wonderful Colorado peaches last summer.  I hope I can get some more this year.  I'm down to one quart. 

 

I have sand hill plums--a lot of them.  They are not like regular plums--they are pretty sour.  Folks around here make jelly out of them.  I've not done that (yet)...we aren't huge jelly eaters.

 

I could babble on and on about this topic but I'll shut up now 

[rotuts]

My mother made what Id guess you would call jelly.  it was strained, but not clear.  from Santa Rosa plums.  she didn't add too much sugar, so it was tart.

 

i have a tart tooth not a sweet tooth.  on buttered sourdough bread that jelly woke you up in the morning. she used every sort of jar she saved. big one little ones etc.

 

I can taste that jelly now.

 

the apricot trees were ubiquitous LosAltos and south.  they were irrigated. with trenches.  you opened some sort of main valve and the whole orchard got a soaking.

 

a ripe apricot has a unique and intense aroma.  you split them with your thumb and placed them on the flats.  everybody had dozens and dozens of

 

flats.  not now

 

 

CA where I lived did not have rain from about march - nov then.  it had plenty of water, from the Sierra's  Hetch Hetchy

 

https://www.google.com/search?q=hech+hechy&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8#q=hetch+hetchy

 

not much water now.  Mt.View is the next town S of LosAltos.  it might not have been incorporated them, and the orchards came right up to the

 

main road  " El Camino Real "  now its been Googled.

 

there were fruit stand and vegetable stands all along that road.  people W/O gardens lined right up

 

but that jelly/jam was out of this world w flavor.  I sometimes had to hold the jam bag up  ( an old pillow case I remember  sometimes used more than once )

 

But I put myself out of business when i found an old IV pole at the stanford dump.  worked fine. wheels and everything

 

I was very please with myself for quite some time.

 

we always had several fruit trees,  plums, apricots, several peach varieties.

 

I don't have any idea why my mother never made apricot jam.  we had plenty.  

Edited June 18, 2015 by rotuts (log)

[kayb]

 

When I had a big garden in Memphis, I would usually freeze the produce, because it tastes better to me, and I thought it safer. I would pickle shelf stable home grown jalapenos, the hottest I've ever tasted. I always reduced the ripe tomatoes into sauce to take up less space in the freezer.

 

Another thing I would do is set sheets of plywood up on cinder blocks in a sunny spare room and put all the green or unripe tomatoes on them right before the first frost. In Memphis' climate with irrigation, I always had tons (not literally, but a couple hundred pounds at least) of tomatoes I would lose to frost damage otherwise. I love fried green tomatoes as much as the next southern gal, but there was no way two people were going to eat up all that bounty that way. It turns out that healthy, well nourished, tomatoes, even when picked green and put in a sunny room like I did will ripen a few at a time to nice and red with lovely flavor over a period of about three months. Bonus: you can enjoy fried green tomatoes anytime during this period. The indoor-ripened ones were much better-tasting than styromates from the grocery, and almost lasted until spring. I did turn them over on the boards every few days, checking for any bad spots, and those got used or tossed on the compost pile. If you have a warm, sunny place where you can put your unripe tomatoes on a semi-absorbent surface before frost takes them, I highly recommend it.

 

TFTC, didn't know you'd lived in Memphis. I lived across the river from it for 30 years. I remember picking the early October green tomatoes, too; we put them on windowsills to ripe. Every window in the house would be bedecked with tomatoes. Mama would also make green tomato relish.

 

A friend told me she has successfully canned green tomatoes by slicing them, stacking in a wide mouth jar, adding salt and then boiling water. The jar is capped and processed in a water bath for 20 minutes; it then has to be moved Very Carefully (lest the hot tomato disintegrate) to a location where it can sit undisturbed for two or three days. I guess it sort of re-forms itself or something.

 

She says it's not as good as the real thing, but not bad.

[ElainaA]

 

on buttered sourdough bread that jelly woke you up in the morning. 

 

Rotus - If you want a jam that will wake you up in the morning, I have a recipe for "Peach preserves for a cold morning" - peach, orange and habanero. Not tart but as hot as you want to make it. And I think it would be fine even if your morning is not cold.

 

 

 ( I have never heard it called putting food by before--I learn something new here all the time   ).  

 

 

 

 

Shelby - Putting Food By by Janet Greene was one of the first cookbooks I owned back when I lived in Vermont. It was first published in 1973 - aimed at all us back-to-the-landers - and is now in its 5th edition, having sold (according to Amazon) over 550,000 copies. I regret having lost my copy somewhere along the way.  I needed it because while my mother did make jam she did no other canning. She froze vegetables from our garden. Dad (a VERY picky eater) did not like cooked tomatoes so she never canned them or made sauce. No pickles either. So I had to learn all that on my own. 

 

 

Living in the Northeast all my life, I suspect I have never had a really good apricot. 

 

I am very jealous of the tomato production some of you have. Do you have problems with fungal diseases? They are epidemic here - two of my friends lost all their tomatoes to late blight last year. I've had early blight and sephoria  every year for the past 4 years which doesn't kill the plants but does decrease productivity. I use an organic spray (actinovite) but since it has rained hard most days for the past 2 weeks (and it seems will into the future) that is pretty much useless.

 

I do put up a lot of tomato products - ketchup, chutney (from a family recipe), salsa and canned whole tomatoes plus making faux V8 juice, puree and sauce to freeze. I always can mustard and dill pickles and some quick-brined sweet pickles. I freeze a lot of pesto - frozen in ice cube trays, then popped out and bagged - so I can defrost however much I need.  But my real love is jams and jellies. I have been working my way through Ferber's Mes Confitures because I love her flavor combinations and her techniques, especially the avoidance of commercial pectin and use of smaller amounts of sugar. 

 

Elaina

[rotuts]

my sister is back in the Bat Area and went over the costal range to Half Moon Bay.  since apricots came up here, she sent me this pic this AM :

 

 

its quite a bit cooler over there than the Bay Side  and lots of morning fog

 

I think that's why you see more or less two colors in this box

 

if I had this box now, Id turn into a Jam/Chutney maker in a heart beat

 

the darker ones are riper and they would go into Jam   the lighter ones are not quite as ripe and would go into Chutney.

 

sigh.

[Dave W]

I do a fair amount of food preservation from each years garden. I've made some ungelled grape syrup (fantastic in BBQ sauce) from my concords if I can fend off the robins long enough.

Bumper tomato crops I usually peel and freeze whole in vacuum. Preserves great.

I make charcuterie too but since I'm not a rancher it's not from preserving abundance but rather as a dalliance and pastime, and to save money.

Home cured bacon eats way better than most commercial ones, and I get a kick out of making dried sausages generally. The bacon is cheap but of course if you amortize all my equipment costs into each sausage they're still more expensive than salami at the store. Getting cheaper every batch though.