Preservation
Posted: Sat Sep 09, 2017 9:14 am
Very likely all of us can freeze a foodstuff, and there are several vegetables I slice, blanche and freeze each year. But there are other ways—dehydrating, salting, pickling etc. This might make a good place for you to offer your tips on the way you preserve your produce and game.
As an example, I routinely do this:
1. Make bruschetta from tomatoes and basil grown in the garden. Bottles of it can be frozen provided you leave enough headspace for expansion.
2. Make pesto from the excess basil. Again, it can be frozen provided you leave enough headspace for expansion.
3. A dehydrator lets me save the parsley as something that can be crumbled and used for cooking for two to three years hence. The same dehydrator lets me make fish and meat jerkies, but I can't take credit for either growing or catching them.
4. I've not looked into the etymology of the US 'canning' versus the UK 'bottling'. All the same, I know and understand why botulism is a great evil to be avoided. It was a simple, and unfortunate, coincidence that I ordered an enormous pressure cooker for canning, and several pounds of Pyrodex on the same day as the Boston marathon bombing occurred. (Perhaps wisely, I have not attempted to enter the Trumpian States of America since.) Nonetheless, I have used the pressure canner to preserve beetroot, tomatoes cooked into a sauce for pizzas and pasta dishes, and zucchini since then with success. Canning meats and fish is a little more risky from the Clostridial point of view, and I haven't tried it myself, although I have been given canned deer, seal and moose. I'd love to know more about what works. (And by the way, if you die without ever tasting stewed moose, you lose. Moose meat is dark and something like a combination of beef, English jugged hare, seal and woodpidgeon breast. Simply gorgeous.)
Along with your root cellar, dried beans and ground cornmeal, how would you get through the winter if the supermarket was off limits?
Chris
As an example, I routinely do this:
1. Make bruschetta from tomatoes and basil grown in the garden. Bottles of it can be frozen provided you leave enough headspace for expansion.
2. Make pesto from the excess basil. Again, it can be frozen provided you leave enough headspace for expansion.
3. A dehydrator lets me save the parsley as something that can be crumbled and used for cooking for two to three years hence. The same dehydrator lets me make fish and meat jerkies, but I can't take credit for either growing or catching them.
4. I've not looked into the etymology of the US 'canning' versus the UK 'bottling'. All the same, I know and understand why botulism is a great evil to be avoided. It was a simple, and unfortunate, coincidence that I ordered an enormous pressure cooker for canning, and several pounds of Pyrodex on the same day as the Boston marathon bombing occurred. (Perhaps wisely, I have not attempted to enter the Trumpian States of America since.) Nonetheless, I have used the pressure canner to preserve beetroot, tomatoes cooked into a sauce for pizzas and pasta dishes, and zucchini since then with success. Canning meats and fish is a little more risky from the Clostridial point of view, and I haven't tried it myself, although I have been given canned deer, seal and moose. I'd love to know more about what works. (And by the way, if you die without ever tasting stewed moose, you lose. Moose meat is dark and something like a combination of beef, English jugged hare, seal and woodpidgeon breast. Simply gorgeous.)
Along with your root cellar, dried beans and ground cornmeal, how would you get through the winter if the supermarket was off limits?
Chris