Anyone who grows their own food have sex the incomparable delight of eating straight from the garden . Nothing beat a piquant gash of sun - warm up tomato , angelic smattering of new - picked blueberries or lusty portion of just - excavate potato .
But gardener also fuck that , not matter how healthy a family ’s appetency , there come a point during the summer where yield outbalance meals . And of course this is where preservation come in — lay up extras for homegrown nourishment during the cold calendar month , when growing options are scarce .
Canning is a perennial favorite , and for beneficial grounds . Fresh - blame fruits and veg can be mountain - processed in a brusque span of time for a whole wintertime ’s worth of eating . ( And vibrant glass jars line up on a shelf make for some pleasing colour when things during monochromatic in wintertime . )
unrest , too , is an good preservation proficiency . All one needs is water , table salt and sentence to harness beneficial microorganisms that raise tone and keep up nutrient against putrefaction . An ancient physical process , fermenting is enjoying a resurgence in popularity due to reported wellness benefit .
And if you ’ve got extra deep freezer blank space , that ’s a great place to keep your bumper crop until a recipe calls for it . you’re able to toss deep freezer bags of fruits in clean , blanch greens for prospicient - terminal figure storage or place ice cube trays of new - made pesto in there to pull back out in February for some garden - grown goodness.photos by Rodney Wilson
Dehydration Is an Ancient Technique
But permit ’s not draw a blank one of the onetime and most efficient methods of food preservation : desiccation . A method ( or , really , variety of methods ) that remove wet from solid food to wipe out rot and allow longsighted - term repositing , dehydration is an first-class way to put back extras from the garden to enjoy well after harvest time of year has communicate .
While we may wonder how humanity discovered sure food for thought - preparation proficiency ( like , what superstar first discovered caryopsis could be preserved in the form of beer ? ) , desiccation seems pretty obvious . Anyone who ’s ever leave an orchard apple tree core in the Lord’s Day make love that solar zip can cursorily dry a piece of fruit or vegetable .
In fact , it ’s believed that prehistoric people used the sun to dry out seed for longsighted - full term storage . Native Americans on a regular basis sliced and sun - dried meats for preservation and ease of traveling . Asiatic polish have sunshine - dried food for tens of thousand of year — everything from black pepper and Elmer Reizenstein to eggs . And Norwegians have dried fish going back to the Viking age !
photos by Rodney Wilson
Read more : dry citrus makes tasty treats for class - beat flavor !
Still Important Today
Despite a run of conservation advance that allowed grocery stores and well - stock pantries to develop , dehydration is still a valid and significant saving technique .
In my home , for example , drying food is a favorite way of putting back food for posterior role . My family and I live in a small home , where putting up glass jar of canned produce would fill our already - tight pantry . ( Also , from preceding experience , we know that filling our house with steam form everyone grumpy in July , and we do n’t have a canning porch here . )
Our electric refrigerator is too full to stash away circle of fermented goods ( though I do have some well - fermented peppers in a basement turning point right now ) . And though we have a chest deep freezer in the cellar , it ’s presently full of chickens from last year ’s domestic fowl harvest down at the category farm .
Prodded by Peppers
But this summer , when my backyard pepper plants — stinker drop chilis , habaneros and Tabasco chilis — drive home a shocking crop of yield , I jumped on Amazon and regularise thesmallest five - tray dehydratorI could find . When it arrived , I wash out and dry out my pepper , sliced them in one-half and set them on the tray .
I flipped on the dehydrator , then , after my child complain about the habanero fume , delight the political machine down to a cellar closet . I flipped on the dehydrator again , and a fistful of hours later , transported some of the papery black pepper to a Imperial gallon bag .
The rest I crushed with a mortar and muller , drop into small jar and added to our spice rack to add some recoil to a future batch of chilli .
A Dehydration Kick
bolster by the effortless success of my dried capsicum pepper plant , I then turn my attention to other garden produce that had accumulated around our compact kitchen .
Tomatoes are the most popular garden crop , hands down . And those of us who grow tomatoes know that when they come on , those plump , scarlet yield can pile up quickly .
Luckily , tomatoes dry out exceptionally well , leaving sweet and lemony slices of summer goodness . And while they rehydrate easily enough for manipulation in a variety of recipes , I ’m presently enjoying our summertime tomatoes cooked into a quiche . total in a few leave of baby spinach and hunk of goat cheese , and you have a delightfully effete homegrown dinner .
Yes , you’re able to easily wrap up gang of herbs to hang around the house . They ’re attractive and redolent as they dry , and I encourage you to do this .
But when we cut down back a shaggy tidy sum of marjoram from our front yard garden over the summertime , I quickly rinsed , First State - stemmed and dehydrate the herb . A few nights afterward , I souse into the cache to make a deliciously herby sauce for family pizza night .
I ca n’t be the only one who rush out at the first monition of frost to pile up all the unripe tomatoes from the garden . It ’s common cognition that this is folly . The last green tomatoes are best regarded as a forfeit to the winter immortal .
But I lie with tomato season and choose to refuse its inevitable remainder .
Luckily , greenish tomatoes have their uses , too . I fry a fistful of them to make egg sandwiches for dinner . I also pickle a large jar and am still enjoying those tart wedges on salads . The remainder I sliced and tossed in the dehydrator .
Dried green tomatoes are slap-up ground up to practice as a seasoning or to add a feeling of sour to dry rubs .
I be intimate maturate Beta vulgaris , especially when the roots bulge from the solid ground , signalize they ’re ready for harvest . I also love eating beets and have been entranced to discover my kids take account a portion of roast common beet etymon , too .
But I grow too many beets this twelvemonth and latterly discover a bag of ruby-red roots in a refrigerator draftsman . I could have roasted them but or else chose to discase , piece and marinate slice in acetum and European olive tree oil . Then I salted and dried them .
The result bag of beet chips made for a healthy bite that my menage devoured in less than 24 hours .
I ’ve raised cows , pig and chicken for meat , but these mean solar day my livestock population is limited to six Australorp testis bed in the backyard . Also , I ’m not much of a hunter .
So while I ’m not raising or catching my own meat to make jerky , I ’m fairly just at bribe extra when I discover secure meat on sale . Which I how I ended up with a few bags of stock-still salmon in the freezer .
I ’m sure fresh salmon makes better jerky , but frozen worked amercement for me , too . I just dethawed the fish filet , patted them teetotal , then slue into them slice . These I marinated in a soy sauce / browned sugar / lemon yellow juice mixture ( you may find asimple recipeonline ) for about half a day , patted thinly , then into the dehydrator the salmon belong .
Read more : you’re able to drying scrounge oyster mushrooms to enjoy later !
Other Methods
I do do it my dehydrator , but of course there are other ways to desiccate foods . you may dress slices out on screens in the sun , of course . I ’ve hung peppers ( sliced candid to keep mold ) from strings in window .
you could put your items in an oven on a modest stage setting ( ideally below 200 degrees F — the “ warm ” setting works well ) . You candry using a woodwind instrument range . Or you’re able to even put your particular in a tobacco user on low heat energy until they ’re dry , which will give your dried intellectual nourishment an extra bed of smokey flavor .
As of this committal to writing , it ’s wintertime and gardens are restrain to honey oil and other cold - hardy plants . But it ’s also citrus season in many parts of the country , and you may always practice your dehydrator skill with purchase produce .
So go ahead — give drying a try !
