Food storage methods

[sumi]

I am a bit of a hoarder when it comes to food and I abhor wasting food stuffs, which is part of the reason I love chickens and pigs (my DH jokingly refers to pigs as "waste food disposal units"), but I am sometimes at a loss as to exactly what to do with those extra, extra, extra strawberries, zucchini, etc that comes in such a flood over the summer months and how to best preserve this bounty without it ending up in the pigpen. So far I took the easy route and tossed everything in the freezer, but frozen things often have a shorter lifespan than I would like, or I defrost the food to find I have a soggy mess, which ends up... in the pigpen. Now, one 2-person family can only eat so much bacon, nice as it is!

What methods do you all use to preserve your home produce?

 

[Britesea]

I like to can up some meat- chicken or beef most often, with onions, carrots and celery. How many dishes start out with that trio? I can just open it and heat it for a simple soup, or add potatoes or noodles or barley etc for a different kind of soup. Thicken it with flour and put a crust on it for a pie, or top with mashed potatoes for cottage pie. Mix with more pasta to make a casserole. and on and on. We could have a different meal every day of the week just using these.

 

[goatgurl]

your dh is so right. i call my chickens 'tiny velocirapters' because they will eat anything. i have tried and tried to impress on my dd and sil not to throw any food stuffs in the garbage can at my house because the goats get first dibs on some of it, the pigs get next choice and the chickens and ducks get whats left. even the egg shells and coffee grounds go in the compost.
now to answer your question. depending on what it is and how much it is i either can, freeze or dry it. for the strawberries i freeze a bunch because i like them in my raw veggie smoothies and i dry them because they make a great sugar free snack. zucchini i like it canned with tomatoes and onions with a little Italian seasonings. i also grate the big stuff and freeze it two cups in a bag so i have it premeasured for zucchini bread. otherwise i don't care for frozen zucc's. I've never tried drying the squash but i guess you could. maybe someday i'll try. you can do the same thing with yellow squash. blackberries i freeze. corn is canned, frozen or dried. i like it best frozen on the cobb. peas mostly i eat fresh 'cause i love them and they don't grow all that great for me but if there is an abundance i freeze them. someday if i ever have a glut of them i'll try drying some. potatoes, white and sweet i store most in the cellar for fresh use but i do can a few of them. winter squash goes into the cellar. i also can and freeze beef, deer, goat, and pork. you can fit a lot of dried food in a small space which i like.
i have a friend who told me about susan gregersen and david armstrong who has a set of books on how to can, dry, freeze, brine, salt or sugar cure, smoke, pickle or ferment anything and i mean anything. i got a set of 3 books from amazon and they are so full of stuff that I'd never dreamed you could preserve. from canning or drying butter and cheese to eggs to anything you can imagine. i highly recommend them. not to much $ either. i haven't tried it all yet but i will experiment with a lot of it sooner or later.

 

[Britesea]

Please don't try this recipe... it would be like playing Russian Roulette! You could do this for years or even decades with no problem, but it only takes one time. If there are any spores of clostridium botulinum present on the corn when you start processing, 1 piece of green tomato is not going to add enough acid to allow you to safely water bath corn. It needs to be 4.5 ph or lower to be acid enough.

You would be better off freezing your corn if you don't want to pressure can it.

This looked like an interesting take on creamed corn that you could try:
Best Ever Slow Cooker Creamed Corn

SERVES 8 | ACTIVE TIME 5 Min | TOTAL TIME 4 Hours 5 Minutes


8 oz cream cheese, cut into pieces
1 cup 2% milk
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter
3 tablespoons granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 pounds frozen corn

Combine ingredients in slow cooker. Stir to combine. Cover and cook on low for 4 hours. At about 3 hours it will completely come together. Allow to cook for the full 4 hours for the best results.

Serve and enjoy.

COOK'S NOTE: Creamed corn will thicken as it sits, you may wish to add a little milk if you would like it to stay in the slow cooker longer.
Recipe developed by Donna Elick - The Slow Roasted Italian

 

[Beekissed]

I can everything possible. The power goes out here so often and can stay out for 2 wks or more, so anything in a freezer is lost. The only thing we use the freezer for is temporary storage until we get enough of that item to can it.

It's so incredibly easy to do that it's a win/win for us. We have a dehydrator but the only thing we use it for is deer jerky.

One of my favorite things to can is something we call slumgulleon, which is just a funky word for a medley of stray veggies from the garden when one doesn't have enough of any one thing to can it up in a large batch. This can later be used as a soup base or, as we normally use it...we heat it, thicken it with cornmeal and use it over potatoes, pasta, biscuits, etc.

Usually has sweet and hot peppers, tomatoes, sweet corn, onions, yellow squash...sometimes new potatoes...this batch even has chives that needed using up.

And in the jar...makes a pretty jar, doesn't it?

One can even can up left over soups, chili, spaghetti, roasts, stew, etc. It's so easy to just open those jars, heat it up on the stove and get into a meal real quick.

 

[sumi]

My mouth is watering, @Beekissed That looks very nice!

 

[sumi]

Thank you @Beekissed Your instructions and the pics are wonderful. I saw some people grow corn around here (DH said the climate is not right), so I'm going to grow some next year and give this a shot. I adore sweetcorn, but the stuff they sell in the shops here are not "right"

 

[sumi]

Talking about shop bought stuff… I bought some eggs today The hens that produced them certainly did NOT free range. They were disgusting!

 

[Beekissed]

This right here is why I rarely contribute to this site any longer. There is no room for anyone to be different in their methods here....always the cries of alarm and dire predictions of loved ones dying and expressions like "Russian Roulette" when old methods of canning are mentioned.

Yes, we can appreciate that there are risks in any level of food preparation...we are adults here and have read all the dos and don'ts of canning. The thread asks for how we preserve our food and I told how we do it. I didn't ask anyone else to do it, didn't propose that everyone do it...just how I do it. No need for overdramatizing things with begging others not to do it, telling them to go take classes, etc. No need to cause anyone to feel this huge level of guilt by introducing the fate of their loved ones if they don't can like the book says to do it, etc.

It wearies me to have to deal with this each and every time I contribute to these sites. I am not a person ruled by fear, don't live my life in fear of this or that and I don't write things here with that view in mind. It's a take it or leave it prospect...if you don't like how I can things, don't do it. If you do, that's okay too, but please spare me the sky is falling kind of rhetoric.

But if you want to know why folks who have actually LIVED in a self reliant manner don't often come here to post, this right here is the reason. There is a huge level of risk in becoming self reliant that most of you will never experience due to this fear and constant need for drama....it's a risk to come out and be separate from the pack, to think outside of the box and use common sense instead of the common consensus. To think differently and do things differently, despite what the general population believes or thinks. It separates those who think of doing from those who actually DO. Those folks who DO don't post here any longer and I am remembering now why I don't either.

 

[sumi]

@Britesea @Beekissed I really appreciate your recipes and contributions and after getting very bad food poisoning from a "perfectly safe, approved, tried and tested" source, am aware of the risks involved with processing and storing foodstuffs, which is why I'm asking the experts, who's done it before me, what worked for you and what didn't.

If there are risks and safety tips we should be aware of, please do share (without arguing )