This post is for this month’s Green Mom’s Carnival. The topic is Food Preservation hosted by Abbie of Farmers Daughter Blog
The entire carnival collection of tips and commentary are here.
For those who pickle, can, dry and otherwise preserve food I commend you!
These are things I’ve never done!
I have never had enough garden, an abundance of crop from my own garden, nor the gumption to buy said abundance to then preserve accordingly.
I have always had limited storage, limited freezer, limited budget and or limited time. I have never thought seasonally in the way that has one say Oh green beans are here – let’s put some up. ( I believe that’s a canning term ). Once, just once, I had too many tomatoes from my garden. I made a batch of homemade ketchup. It made a single jar of ketchup of which I used occasionally when I made meatloaf. I thought I was so cool that I did that!
I have watched and marveled and even enjoyed the labor of many others who have preserved food. I wonder often what might it be like to immerse in a year of, day in and day out peek at life on a farm – actually living the life of local, seasonal growing, cooking, preserving and eating!
Perhaps that is something to add to my bucket list.
To contribute to the conversation this month I can share a few things I do that would ere on the side of preserving food – or the idea of making something for later use.
I became a scratch cook when my kids were itty bitty. I made much of what folks opened a box or can for from scratch. I never realized I was a genre of sorts until I saw how others cooked or ate for that matter. Nuking something in the microwave is something very foreign to me.
I make a home made tomato sauce. I have two kinds: one is a savory meaty kind, the other is a quick chunky sweeter kind. When I was feeding a family I would double the batch. The first meal was noodles and sauce, the second meal was a casserole ( something like veggie stuffed pasta or stuffed peppers) 1/2 would get eaten, the other 1/2 frozen for later. There was always at least one jar of sauce to freeze. Basically I was getting a handful of meals with the effort of one sauce making. The sweeter sauce I would make in the summer, shorter cooking time, more garlic, fresh herbs – shredded zucchini when they were coming out of everyone’s ears – a perfect summer stove top meal, plus plenty left to freeze in smaller jars for pizza sauce.
I do this with so many of my cooking efforts. Even now – cooking for one, I still “manufacture” food making sure to make the most of my cooking time.
In my freezer now: garlic scape pesto, cous cous mixed w/ meaty sauce for stuffed peppers, a heat and serve curry sauce for chicken, chicken soup stock, veggie stock.
What is in your freezer and what is your favorite food to preserve??
