Comments on: Preserving the Value of Food

By: Annie

Annie — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 11:55:50 +0000

Question for anyone out there. I love peppers, bananna peppers, cayanne, all kinds and my mother grows it in the summertime. I love to fry it in olive oil. My question is, we always have more at the end of summer and i want to freeze it or preserve it for winter so i can use it. Whenever we freeze it the pepper becomes icy and mushy and it doesn’t taste the same. We try the same with tomatoes, cabbage and spinach. They are frozen and when thawed out and cooked, it’s super mushy and not as good as fresh. Any ideas?????

By: Janis

Janis — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 10:59:17 +0000

Different strokes… If I were told to choose one fruit or vegetable for canning, it would be tomatoes. All winter long, they are the most reached for item in my home-canned pantry, going into so soups, stews, and chili, and more. I generally pack them as “stewed” tomatoes, so they don’t reduce as much. Anyone with an abundance of home grown tomatoes or a low cost source of tomatoes by the bushel, should try canning sauce made from oven-roasted tomatoes, garlic and peppers. (Be sure to use an approved canning recipe and method.)

Remember to consider your family’s preferences when you preserve food. The jars and jars of pickles that I put up were delicious, but they didn’t make us eat a LOT more pickles than usual. On the other hand, delicious pickles and jams make great impromptu gifts.

By: AnnJo

AnnJo — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 03:55:12 +0000

Last night I was really tired so pulled a jar of home-canned ground beef off the shelf to make a quick home version of Beef Stroganoff Hamburger Helper. Tonight it was a jar of home-canned chicken to make a sort of chicken tetrazzini with fresh broccoli, rehydradated shitake mushrooms and home-roasted red peppers. Last week I used a jar of home-canned pork shoulder for an enchilada casserole. (I do have raw meat in the freezer, but my schedule has been tight lately and meal planning went by the way-side.)

These meats were all purchased on sale at about a quarter of the usual cost, canned in a batch of 14-16 jars, and given that they were already cooked, the dinner prep time was much less than usual.

Canned fruits and vegetables can be purchased for about 50 cents a can on sale. Canned meats are typically either unavailable or much more expensive. If I’m going to spend 3-4 hours hanging around the kitchen canning, the higher value, if you eat meat, is to can meat rather than vegetables. Vegetable pickles and relishes or jams are also good values.

By: Lilly

Lilly — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 18:41:49 +0000

Trent, I know the gov’t and Blue Book recommend blanching — not to kill microorganisms but to deactivate the enzymes that could degrade the veggie — but I have heard from others that it is possible to satisfactorily freeze veggies without blanching them first. Can you elaborate on how you prepare the veggies to be frozen. I know you said you soaked them in water, but do you mean plain tap water? salted water? cold? warm? for how long? Does the corn on the cob prepared this way taste anything like fresh corn, because I can tell you from experience that blanched corn on the cob absolutely does not.

By: Marie

Marie — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 14:05:19 +0000

If you want to can vegetables, you might look into investing in a pressure canner. It brings and maintains the temperature of non-acidic vegetables up to the level needed to prevent botulism. Acidic vegetables and fruit can be canned using a regular water bath canner.

I recently found a dehydrator at a garage sale for $3. It’s been wonderful. I’ve already dried all kinds of herbs from my garden as well as tomatoes, onions and garlic. Made several nice batches of beef jerky as well.

By: Riki

Riki — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 13:07:04 +0000

I have a new house with fruit trees in the back yard — 2 apple trees and a plum tree. I am absolutely going to make plum jam and something with the apples (although that will depend on the kind of apples I get . . . time will tell).

I have already scheduled my mother to come in a help me with the jam. This is a first for me and I’m really excited. Summer is way too busy for me to garden (wedding photographer here) but I get a lot of stuff from my mom’s gigantic garden and it really does come in handy all year long.

But mostly I just can’t wait for some yummy plum jam.

By: John

John — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 13:02:00 +0000

You can dehydrate okra for use later, we also vacume pack what we out in the freezer.

By: Jules

Jules — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 12:30:59 +0000

We make jams and jellies out of the blackberries and elderberries that grow in the woods in these parts. Cost is really just the cost of the jelly sugar (contains pectin), since we just re-use old jars (only the ones with metal, pop-button lids). If tomatoes are on sale, I’ll typically make a ton of tomato sauce and freeze that. I’m still trying to convince the boyfriend to agree to trying saurkraut, though ;-)

As for freezing: agree with blanching. Most frozen veggies are sold blanched. If you freeze anything, the most important part of preventing freezer burn is to exclude the air, so preferably you should use baggies. This is also why, when I do buy meat (nearly-date-expired), I always rewrap it into individual portions (my boyfriend is the one who eats it) before freezing it.

By: deRuiter

deRuiter — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 10:43:37 +0000

Most vegetables do need to be blanched to stop disease organisms and slow deterioration. Canning’s great in case of an electric failure in warm weather, because everything in the freezer and refrigerator goes bad in a couple of days with no power, and all the food becomes compost. The beauty of canned (actually jarred) food is that you see what you’ve got through the clear glass, it’s easy to check for a perfect seal with the two piece lids, the jars can be reused over and over, ditto the rings, and when the electric stops, the food is still safe for use. There’s not much as satisfactory as a pantry full of jars of jelly, pickles, jams, canned tomatoes, canned applesauce, etc. You know you won’t go hungry. As for the person who said that tomatoes cook down too much (no quarrel with that statement!), make sauce with the tomatoes and then can the sauce. Or make tomaote juice and can it, shake well before opening. Canning jars, preowned ones, are cheap. Ask your friends, and especially older relatives and friends, run a wanted ad in Criagslist, post on bulletin boards. You’ll often get jars for almost nothing, and people will throw in metal jar rings and the occasional pack of lids too. Freezing is easy, but the risk of losing a whole freezer full of produce is a possibility during a power failure like a tornado, hurricane, other war weather event. Get the newest “Ball Blue Book” of canning and don’t try anything like “oven canning” and you’ll do fine: waterbath for high acid foods and pressure canner for low acid.

By: Michele

Michele — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 02:38:24 +0000

Please people, if you are canning, freezing, storing or preserving food for future use, please check current guidelines! PLEASE use a recent cookbook or check online with a reputable site! Otherwise, you can harbor deadly bacteria if you don’t preserve food correctly!
#6 Kristine- NO! Rinse it, chop it into chunks, boil at a hard boil for 3 minutes, drain, cool, then pat dry and freeze in a freezer bag with all the air removed for no more than 3 months.

By: Rockledge

Rockledge — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 22:36:53 +0000

Old methods of preserving using vinegar, salt, and/or sugar are also worth looking into. They tend to be less nerve-wracking than canning yet don’t need to be frozen.

Pickling is an easy option. You can pickle firm vegetables such as carrots, okra, onions, cauliflower, and peppers with vinegar. It’s a lot easier than regular canning. In the winter, we’ll make salads with the pickled veggies and a little mayo.

Brine pickling is fun and delicious but needs more oversight and doesn’t preserve as long. Good brining vegetables are cabbage (sauerkraut and kim chi), cucumbers, and collard greens.

Jellies are a good preservation option and you can make varieties from tomatoes and onions. You can also make your own ketchup.

When I had gallons of tomatoes from my garden, I used to make a lot of chutney which came out like a cross between jelly and pickles. It preserved very well and was delicious on plain, cooked meat.

There’s lots of info on this kind of preserving in books and online. It’s a fun thing to do with your kids.

By: Gretchen

Gretchen — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 21:41:46 +0000

One year I blanched and froze corn on the cob. So not worth it (although the taste was better then unblanched home frozen).

Other thing I’ll never do again? Can tomatoes. They just reduce down too much for the effort.

By: kristine

kristine — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 21:24:22 +0000

Can you just take a whole yellow squash and freeze it? Does leaving it intact keep it from degrading?

By: Jenny

Jenny — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 20:45:02 +0000

I have had excellent success freezing beans. Whether in a container for later use or wrapped in a burrito for lunch, cooking a large amount of beans at once and preserving leftovers for later is a huge cost saver (and flavor bonus) in my kitchen.

By: kjc

kjc — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 19:51:29 +0000

Of course you should blanch vegetables prior to freezing them. From the National Center for Home Food Preservation:

“Blanching slows or stops the action of enzymes which cause loss of flavor, color and texture. Blanching cleanses the surface of dirt and organisms, brightens the color and helps retard loss of vitamins. Blanching also wilts or softens vegetables and makes them easier to pack.”

By: Sara A.

Sara A. — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 19:27:35 +0000

I thought you were supposed to blanch vegetables before freezing them?

By: lurker carl

lurker carl — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 16:10:43 +0000

Purchase seconds from a farmer’s stand. No one cares how pretty the veggies were before they were processed. For instance, last week we bought a half bushel of blemished cucumbers for $4 and preserved them for future use as pickles. Local tomatoes are starting to come on strong now and prices are high, we’ll wait 3 weeks or so when the plants are overproducing for demand to get similar bargins. The nice thing about buying versus growing is you can plan when you have time for preserving produce, growing your own puts you on Mother Nature’s schedule.

By: valleycat1

valleycat1 — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 14:39:07 +0000

The easiest way to find recipes to cook your garden produce is to do an online search of ‘recipe x’ where the variable(s) is/are the particular item(s) you want to include in the dish. Or go to almost any large recipe website & they’ll allow you to search by ingredient(s).

Hard copy cookbooks usually have an index by ingredient as well – you don’t have to stick to vegetarian sources. I also enjoy a good cookbook on cooking according to what’s in season.