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Does anyone store food for winter?
Posted by amybyrd21 • 8/31/09
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Do any of yall freeze or can food for winter. I normally do but did not this year at all.
We prefer the canned veggies and fruit to frozen. If you do what is your favorite thing to put up.
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After thinking about your question, I do know the squirrels outside are busy storing food FOR the winter. I don't believe bears do this because they are sleeping. What food do you like to store? -
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Living here in MA delicious fresh local produce is available in the summer and in the fall. Some families have small gardens and other families purchase the produce. Preparing and freezing strawberries, blueberries, steamed butternut squash, and green pepper strips has been a hobby of mine for decades. Strawberry, Blueberry and Peach Freezer Jam is absolutely yummy and enjoyed all year by my family. So much tastier than commercial jams.
Fresh produce, clean hands, clean utensils/cutting boards, etc. and clean containers are all needed while preparing foods for the freezer. All summer I have shared postings on my blog about freezing family favorite foods and there are links to my recipes that I use.
Have you ever substituted Butternut Squash for Pumpkin while baking one of the pies for Thanksgiving Dinner? My mom always did and the tradition lives on in my family! Defrost the frozen produce (with labeled and dated containers) by placing it in the fridge to defrost. A microwave can be used, also.
The freezer is so handy!
JG-
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Could you share some of these old traditional family jam recipes with your friends? We're listening or just post them and tell us when.
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I use the sure gel packages for my jams. I put up green tomato pickles, peppers and kimchi. I sell the peppers and kimchi and never have any for the house. I couldnt make the kimchi this year due to fruit flies. I would seal that stuff up and still had them get in. I wasted a bunch of cabbages.
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Sorry about that. I never like wasting food. I went to your web site! I saw the jam recipe. what is celo? Could it be like corn starch and pectin? Is it a brand name, or is is a gelatin powder? I like learning new things.
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haha let me go look and make sure that wasnt a typo. I have these stored on the puter and I make a lot of typos at might when the light is off in the bedroom. (Hubby has to be at work really early and is up at 330.) Which one was it?
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The blueberry and peach jams.
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wrong place.
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My grandmother had shelves upon shelves lined with home-canned goods, and it's something I've always wanted to try my hand at, but never had the money to get started. I know it doesn't cost tons, but all at once would be a good chunk of change. I should probably start small and see how I do with it, huh?
I have a ton of canning recipes from my mom and grandmothers - it's a shame I haven't used them!
I do freeze a lot. We used to do OAMC (Once a Month Cooking), but I haven't for years. I freeze herbs from my garden along with other veggies and anything I come across in bulk during the summer.-
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I also have wanted to try this. My Aunt Myna had a garden and she have shelves of canned or jared bottles just filled with delicious jams, fruits and vegetables. I want to try my hand at this. It will feel rewarding to try something I haven't done before.
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I don't any longer but when we lived in the back woods (seriously!) I did a lot of canning. That included meats and things like soups too because the power supply was always an iffy thing. It always seemed to come on within 24 hours but nobody wanted to fast till it returned. LOL -
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EVERYONE!
I've been thinking it would be neat to plan a canning event during the month of October. Everyone could find one or two favorite recipes and prepare them. Provide photos of them and post the stories on our blogs. Then we could link them here in a special OCTOBER DISCUSSION and it would be a Canning Party. This way we could all budget for the recipe(s) without going overboard and we would have special filled jars to enjoy through the winter days.-
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I'll take a pass on that one, but if you want to do a scone or coffee event thats different.
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sounds good to me. Sign me up
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I want to can a lot more, I only just started up again after a hiatus so long that I needed a stool to look over the big canning pot lip the last time I did it :). I just pickled a big mess of okra in wine and basil.-
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I would never have thought of doing this to okra. It is one of my least favorite vegetable. Now you mention preparing it this way, there is a bit of interest on my part, that wonders what pickled okra tastes like, especially using wine and basil. Does this lend a smokey flavor?
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Every time I see this question I think to myself, "Sure I store food for the winter ... on my hips, around my waist, my thighs." I need to stop storing food ... like a hamster or a squirrel.
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LOL
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Don't know why it took me so long to respond to this question! We have a small kitchen garden every year and I can tomato sauce and green tomato relish. We also have a peach tree that is insanely prolific...we get bushels of peaches from this one tree! So...in addition to making peach cobbler, pie, etc., I make peach jam and peach chutney as well. I also have an herb garden just outside my kitchen, and I usually dry my herbs, although I make pesto from the basil and freeze it in ice cube trays and then drop them in a freezer bag.
I have one of those FoodSaver vaccuum sealers and use it all the time! Our friends think we're crazy because we have two chest freezers plus the side-by-side freezer with our fridge...and it's only the two of us at home! But I need all the freezer space because I cook for the entire week most every Sunday, plus I do big-batch cooking or double-batch cooking quite often. On top of that, I make and freeze things to send to my son in Virginia, and my brother-in-law and father-in-law in South Carolina. So you see? I need all that freezer space!-
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Prolific Peaches! Food alliteration, nothing like it
You need a restaurant with all that freezer space! -
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Uh, yeah. Could I get on that shipping list?
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Having our own nice size vegetable garden, I freeze all vegetables and make lots of tomato sauce for the winter. We also do an amazing spicy lemon chutney and cut all herbs and freeze them.-
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I would love the recipe for the spicy lemon chutney. I live in the South and we loves us some chutney down here!
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Penny, this can only be done with lots of hot sunny days, but here it goes:
1 glass container (I use the containers from instant coffee, they are perfect)
1 12x12inches cloth piece
rubber band
coarse sea salt
dried chillie peppers (I like using the long red dried African ones)
Lemons
crumble the peppers
cut lemons into quarters
Create layers of salt, peppers, lemons, salt, peppers, lemons and so on until the glass container is totally full and well packed. Add a lot of lemon juice to make sure there are no air bubbles (very important), cover the container with the cloth piece and a rubber band,
Put it outside and let it cook in the sun. Make sure to choose an area where the sun will hit pretty well. Every other day, check if it needs more lemon juice. It will take about 20 to 30 days if you have amazingly strong sun and a few more days otherwise. You will see the colour change and become pasty.
Once done, just replace the cloth piece for it normal lid and as long as you add a little lemon juice from time to time you do not have to refrigerate it.
This is awesome with a nice grilled steak, place a little of it on the plate and dab the steak. Also another thing I do is the following:
mix 1/3 cup of the hot lemon chutney, 1 bar of butter, 4 cloves of garlic (minced), mix all these ingredients then while grilling chicken or pork, keep on spreading the paste.
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Lol....I know Anne, but hubby will not let me use the "R" word!! He is an accountant and knows very well the profitability risk involved! We got close once, but the deal fell through and I promised I would not go down that road again...that is pretty much when I started focusing on writing.
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Do you mean the word RESTAURANT?
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LOL....yes...that would be the "forbidden" word!
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But a tasty one.
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Thanks to Jane Doiron, she provided me with a link to get a freezing chart. I printed it out and it covers pretty much anything. I don't think she would mind my passing this invaluable yet handy information to everyone here.
www.foodsafety.gov/~fsg/f01chart.html You can freeze poultry up to 9 months. I would suggest using a vacuum sealer for best results. I use the inexpensive hand held Reynolds Handi Vac. Jane Doiron
Jane also has a video of her niece making cookies. They use the vacuum sealer and I say this because they were freezing very small portions, which is a brilliant idea! makeaheadmealsforbusymoms.blogspot.com/2009/07/cooking-videos-with-kailey.h...
My niece, Rachael sent me a photographs of fig jam that she and her roommate Chef Sam cooked. the little jars are so cute. I have never gotten into making jellies or jams and I do not know why, but I will try out a few this year. If you have any good recipes for jams please point me in that direction.