Food Storage

[Ozark Lady]

You have grown all this lovely produce.
You have picked your mushrooms.
You have gone hunting and fishing and brought home the catch.
So, what are you going to do now?
Do you... root cellar, dehydrate, can, freeze, ferment, salt cure... What do you do?
And how does it work for you?

[Kisal]

Back in the days when I kept a large garden, fruit trees, etc., I preserved produce by canning, freezing, pickling and dehydration.

Haven't ever done salt-curing or fermentation, unless you count sauerkraut (which I detest! ).

[rainbowgardener]

Yes! (mostly). Dehydrate (dry) herbs. Can tomatoes, tomato sauce. Turn cucumbers into refrigerator pickles (a kind of salt curing).

But mostly I freeze things. Easiest and I think freshest. A lot of times I freeze finished product - I.e. I turn my veggies into salsa, lasagna, stuffed peppers, soups, stews, pesto etc. Then I freeze those. Then I just have to defrost for instant meals. Last night we ate curried chickpea & vegetable stew that I made in summer and froze.

It's very easy that way. When I'm doing all the summer cooking with fresh veggies, I just make double or triple recipes and freeze the leftovers.

But I also have corn, green beans, broccoli, frozen as is. (I didn't grow the corn, it came from the local CSA farm.)

[applestar]

I wish I had a root cellar. Another one of my "projects" -- are you starting to see a pattern here -- is to try digging/building one or more of those "trash can" root cellars. It's a back burner project because of the labor involved -- the snag being the clay subsoil. It may have to be a bunker kind of design....

[Kisal]

I think if you keep the clay soil moist, but not wet, it isn't so difficult to dig. I've dug down as deep as 5' into my yard, and I guarantee there's nothing there but clay!

If it's too dry, it's like trying to dig through solid rock. If it's too wet, it sticks to the shovel in big, heavy globs.

But there is a happy medium!

[Ozark Lady]

I can foods, dehydrate, and freeze. I have made sauerkraut, and homemade is so much better than store bought. You gotta try it, if you even remotely like sauerkraut... I even like canned store bought sauerkraut.

I would like to learn about root cellaring, and salt curing, as well as smoking.

Could someone who is skilled in these skills, tell us about it, or possibly supply photos and explanations.

Growing the food is great, and cooking it is marvelous, but we also need to know how to preserve our bounty.

[cynthia_h]

I recently purchased Preserving Food without Freezing or Canning: Traditional Techniques Using Salt, Oil, Sugar, Alcohol, Vinegar, Drying, Cold Storage, and Lactic Fermentation. My source was Lehmans in Ohio, but these days they also have a website! (Lehmans is Mennonite-owned, not Old Order Amish; it makes a difference in their approach to electricity and therefore technology.)

https://www.lehmans.com

I haven't read through the book yet, but the few recipes I've glanced at look very much like "set it up and leave it for a good, long while," which is what someone with a large garden--not me (96 sq. feet under production)--needs.

Maybe something like this will be helpful, and maybe you can look through a copy at a library nearby before springing for your own copy....

Cynthia H.
Sunset Zone 17, USDA Zone 9

[Ozark Lady]

Oh my goodness, I love that Lehmans link.
Look what I found:

https://www.lehmans.com/store/Kitchen___Canning_and_Preserving___Food_Mills___Hand_Crank_Home_Oil_Press___30340100?Args=#

It is a mill to get our own homemade oils... Wow, that is an area, I was wondering what we could do about.