While it ’s hard to imagine on a cold January Clarence Shepard Day Jr. , there may come a time when you see at your vegetable garden and enquire what possess you to set so much . Tomatoes pile up on the sideboard , dark-green beans are rust at every meal and your neighbors warn that they will not take any more zucchini .
luckily , you have several options for preserve the harvest home to enjoynextwinter when its abode - grown taste will be so appreciated .
Freezing
Freeze pesto in plastic sandwich bags for easy storage for winter.
Freezing is the gentle way to deliver some of your garden garden truck for winter eating . Some foods such as raspberries can plainly be freeze whole . Wash them gently , permit them enfeeble on paper towels , and put the Charles Edward Berry on a cookie rag in the freezer . In a couple of hours , they ’ll be stock-still and you may pack them in pliant bags , removing just what you involve for baking or fruit smoothies . Even tomatoes can be frozen whole , if you be after to habituate them only in cookery . ( you could also blench them lightly and take away the skins before freeze , but that ’s not necessary . )
Other foods such as gullible beans and courgette need a quick blanching before freezing . Clean the intellectual nourishment and thin out to the size you wish ( for zucchini a one - half inch piece works well ) , then drop the vegetables in water and boil for three minutes . After cooking , rate the vegetables in ice water to cool down them immediately . Drain well and pack in freezer bags .
One of my favorite foods to freeze is pesto . When Basil the Great is abundant , make pesto using nuts , olive petroleum , garlic , salt and sweet basil . I do not add Parmesan Malva sylvestris until I ’m serve the pesto , but I know masses who add it before the pesto is frozen with unspoiled result . Once your pesto is made , smooch it into slide fastener ignition lock pocketbook and lay the traveling bag savourless on a cooky sheet . Freeze them . You ’ll have minute little packets of pesto , which make for a nimble and person - restore pasta dinner in mid - winter , and take up almost no way in your deep freezer .
Jam made with yellow pear tomatoes — yum!
Drying
Drying is another alternative for preserving food for thought . Drying removes the piss from foods , making them less probable to botch up . Dehydrators are available in a spacious range of prices from under $ 50 to almost $ 200 . Dehydrating can be sly and you might want to learn up on it before trying it . Minnesotan Mary T. Bell of Lanesboro has several books ( Food Drying with an Attitudeis her latest ) and offer dry supplies atwww.drystore.com . you could also dry tomatoes in the oven by cutting them in half , salting lightly , if you ’d like , and cooking them at about 200 F. for five to seven hours . Oven - dried tomatoes have an intense flavor and are delectable on pizzas or in pasta sauce . Oven - dried tomatoes need to be stored in the refrigerator or deep freezer to prevent spoilage .
Canning
electronic jamming ( for fruit ) and pickles ( for vegetables ) essentially involve preserving nutrient by cooking them with sugar or vinegar and cabbage . Most electronic jamming and pickles or relishes can be preserved using the“hot - body of water bath”method of canning . In this method , the hot crush or pickle are packed into sterile , hot jars and then boil under water system . The stewing creates a vacuum seal and the foods can be kept without infrigidation . Hot - water system bath canning is not hard — though it can be red-hot — and does n’t require a lot of special equipment . Canning set admit helpful pecker such as a tumid canning pot and a jar lifter . To can non - acid foods , such as green beans , carrot or maize , you MUST apply a pressure canner , which can raise the food temperature to 240 degrees or high so as to stamp out bacteria .
Storage
carrot , potatoes , onions , beetroot and other base crop can just be stored in a theme cellar for the season . If you do not have a theme wine cellar ( and these days , not many of us do ) , you could keep veggies in the service department or a coolheaded topographic point in the basement for awhile . Or you’re able to set up an outdoor root cellar , likethis one . No matter where you stash away vegetables , be sure to store only perfect veg . ding , dent and flaccid spot will soon go bad in storage . Also , choose variety that are labeled for storage . You ’ll often see white potato or mash label as “ estimable keepers . ” Those are the ones to hive away for wintertime feeding . University of Minnesota Extension has ripe advice on storing vegetables .
Information Sources
Preserving foods is a satisfying endeavor — it brings out that internal innovator — and there are several informative account book and website on how to do it well and safely . We like :
The Fresh Girls Guide , written by Minnesotan Ana Micka
Put ’em Upby Sherri Vinton Brooks This has one of the near section written on the safety issues surrounding canning and preserving .
Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving – a rescript of the noted Ball Blue Book of Canning and Preserving recipe ( which is also still useable ) ;
Canning for a New Generation , by Liana Krissoff and Rinne Allen
Homemade support : Canning and Preserving with Ashley English
There are many websites devote to canning , too . A good place to start is theNational Center for Home Food Preservation . It has complete instruction manual on all the processes . The University of Minnesota also has goodinformation on canningon its website .
— Mary Lahr Schier
