Freeze, dry and can: food preservation ideas to ensure you have the taste of summer all year long. 

As the warm days wane, it’s easy to start mourning the loss of summer food. While the thought of root vegetable dishes might feel cozy now, you know that there’s going to be a time of complete and utter food boredom when all you want is to stuff yourself with blackberries. Fortunately, we live in the modern era of freezers and ovens, and storing some of summer’s bounty is easier than you might think.

If you have an overflowing CSA box, or went on a berry picking extravaganza and are in need of some ideas for food preservation that will have you eating summer all year long, look no further.

1. Freeze fruit

One of the best tips for freezing fruit, particularly berries, is something I have watched my mother do for years. Cover a baking sheet with whatever you want to freeze – blueberries, apricots, blackberries, etc. – and place in the freezer. This allows the fruit to individually freeze, which means you avoid a mashed together frozen clump later. After it has frozen, remove from the freezer and put all the fruit into an airtight container.

2. Make sundried tomatoes

If there’s one item of summer bounty that I dream of in winter, it’s tomatoes. While they’re called “sun-dried,” you can of course do them in the oven.

3. Make jam

What better way to taste a bit of summer in the height of winter than a bright and colorful jam you made yourself?

4. Make compote or fruit butter and freeze it

Some people are intimidated by making jam. If canning isn’t up your alley, consider making compotes or fruit butter instead and just freezing them. It’s as easy as cooking down fruit, adding a little sweetener (if you want to) and then putting in a sealable container for storage in the freezer. I find it’s easy to store in smaller quantities, that way you don’t have to defrost a 2-gallon container of compote when you want to eat it.

5. Dehydrate fruit

If you have a dehydrator at home, drying fruit is easy, but it can even be done in your oven. Drying time in the oven will range from about 6-12 hours depending on which fruits you are doing.

6. Pickle things

What better way to use summer beans than pickling them? Or what about pickled red pepper? Pickling is of course one of the oldest forms of food preservation, and as long as you have a few mason jars and some storage space, there’s nothing stopping you.

7. Infuse vodka with fruit

If summer cocktails are your thing, then you definitely should make a few batches of infused vodka. Pick your summer fruits, infuse for 3 to 5 days, then strain the fruit out and you have a fruit base for cocktails that will last through the cold months; depending on how many cocktails you make of course.

8. Make a puree to freeze

Cook and puree eggplant and you have the base for a baba ghanoush later in the winter. If you want you can puree vegetables and then freeze them in an ice cube tray, which makes for easy small portions that later can be added to soups and beyond.

9. Make fruit leather

Pretend you’re 8 again and make fruit leather. Yes, you can roll it up and put it in your lunchbox.

10. Dry peppers 

Peppers are easy to dry and then can be used to spice up your winter dishes; a chili perhaps?

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Image: Klearchos Kapoutsis

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Put the warm days and long nights of summer to good use by learning some new DIY craft skills.

Summer is a wonderful time to be lazy and do nothing, but also an excellent opportunity to take the time to make something. Put those warm days and long nights to good use by learning some new DIY craft skills. Here are some of our favorite creative projects — some can even be done while laying in a hammock.

Image: ar.nieza

1. Make T-shirt Yarn
We all have an abundance of old tees laying around the house. Put them to good use by making them into something useful — T-shirt yarn. It’s simple and you’ll actually end up with a ball of soft (just like your favorite tee) continuous yarn that you can then use to crochet, knit or knot. Check out this video tutorial by Relevé Design to learn how.

Image: sukigirl74

2. Learn to Crochet
No disrespect to knitting, but crocheting feels more like a summer skill. You barely need any supplies and it can be done anywhere (even in the hammock). Make a cute bikini, a patio stool cover or put that T-shirt yarn you just made to good use! Vogue knitting will teach you the basics.

Image: Honestly WTF

3. Make Friendship Bracelets
Remember how much fun you had with these when you were a kid? Well, friendship bracelets are still just as fun to make (and wear). Once you master the technique, demonstrated here by Honestly WTF, you can start playing around with different color variations, thicknesses, decorations and bling. The possibilities are endless. Make sure to actually make some for your friends, because they’ll want some.

Image: Mr. Kate

4. Make Prints
Printmaking is a fine art, but it’s also very DIYable. With a bit of creativity anything can turn into a stamp or a canvas. Make some fine art for your walls using acrylic paint to print, swap it out for fabric paint and spruce up a few old garments or make a nice set of invites for your next summer soirée — the sky is the limit. Check out this easy printmaking tutorial by Mr. Kate for some really nice tips.

Image: Serious Eats

5. Say ‘Yes I Can’
If you’ve ever tried growing your own tomatoes, you’ll know that time when they all seem to be ripe at the same time, forming a massive mountain impossible to eat your way through. Instead of letting them go bad, can them — or any other fruit and vegetable for that matter. It’s easy, fulfilling and will save you lots on money come winter. Invite your friends over for a canning party to get some extra hands. Serious Eats has a good beginner’s guide to canning.

Top image by Mr. Kate

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Buying stuff is out. Doing stuff is in. Everybody loves food and it seems like these days you can’t walk down the street without tripping over a self-identified “foodie.” No question, as we change the way we think about food, it’s taking on a new importance in our culture. Now it’s time to change the way we think about holiday food gifts.

This year, let’s lose the plastic wrapped gift baskets of packaged “gourmet” food items that are shipped from far away, gathered up together and then flung across the country in trains, trucks, and planes. All that petroleum and packaging just so some foodie can have yet another bottle of flavored vinegar or sickly sweet jam. What a waste!

Likewise, it’s time to lay off single use, gimmicky food utensils that exist solely to provide stumped gift givers with something to spend money on.

Experiences are more meaningful and memorable than things. They’re also more thoughtful, environmentally responsible, and supportive of local businesses. Some are even free.

Here are our best ideas for bringing the joy of real food to your family, friends, and community this holiday season.

1. Host a Canning Party You supply the jars and a case or two of something seasonal like apples, pears or citrus. Your friends bring the snacks and their willingness to work. Spend the afternoon eating and socializing while you all work together to produce apple or pear butter or orange marmalade. It’s a fun party and everyone gets to go home with a homemade party favor.

2. Host a Baking or Jam Exchange You supply the food and drink (or make it a potluck) and your friends bring a batch of either jam they’ve canned or a batch of goodies they’ve baked. Everybody trades. Everybody wins.

3. Host a Skill Share Poll your friends to see what skills they’d like to learn, and what skills they’d like to share. Ideas include yogurt making, sprouting, sourdough bread baking, sauerkraut making, meat curing, coffee roasting, beer brewing, jamming, or pickling. Match up learners with teachers over a series of Saturdays.

4. Give the Gift of Knowledge There’s been an explosion of affordable and interesting homesteading and eco-cooking classes and talks. Check into gift certificates for the DIY types on your list. Urban Kitchen SF hosts hands-on classes on butchering, fermenting, and more with local experts. The Institute for Urban Homesteading teaches cheesemaking, brewing, and beekeeping. 18 Reasons hosts talks, educational dinners, and a variety of creative food events. Look around in your local area for similar programs. Lest you think this is only applicable to the San Francisco Bay Area, note that The University of Utah offers classes in Urban Homesteading, and there’s also an organization in Denver.

5. Hold a Bake Sale for a Local Food Charity Want to help out a local food bank or soup kitchen? Why not get your friends together for a bake sale? What a great excuse to talk to passers-by and one another while raising money to help make sure everyone gets enough to eat.

6. Host a Potluck Movie Night Looking for a gentle way to get friends and relatives more engaged in food issues without being preachy? Host a potluck movie night and show one of the many excellent food documentaries that have come out over the past few years. If Food Inc. is a little too hard-hitting, try Fresh or Nourish.

7. Host a Potluck of Local or Foraged Foods Even if your local farmers’ market shuts down for the winter, you can still find local foods. Look for local dairy, egg, or meat producers. Also invite your foraging friends and ask everyone to bring a dish whose main ingredient is from within 20 miles away. The idea is for participants to be exposed to local goodies they wouldn’t otherwise know about.

8. Visiting family? Hit up a Farmers’ market or Farmstand You’d really like to get your family off the packaged food, but don’t want to nag. Remember that lots of people eat packaged food because they don’t know how to prepare fresh stuff or because what’s available in the grocery store fresh just doesn’t taste that good. Introduce them to the amazing difference in flavor between fresh from the farm produce and the grocery store offerings by visiting a farmers’ market or farm stand and cooking together.

9. Bake or Cook with a Child We’re doomed if we don’t teach our children to cook. So let go a little of your need for perfect food or a clean kitchen and get those kids in there with you. And keep it light and fun. Enough said.

10. Support a Local Farmer or Fisher for your Holiday Meal Want to directly support a small farmer or fisher? Consider special-ordering a heritage turkey or goose from a local farm or, if you live near the coast, buy some fish right off the boat from a fisherman. Maybe you can’t afford it every day, but for a special occasion, it’s a great way to make a direct connection with your food producers.

This is the latest installment in Vanessa Barrington’s weekly column, The Green Plate, on the environmental, social, and political issues related to what and how we eat.

Image: L. Marie

The post The Green Plate: 10 Seasonal Experiential Food Gifts for Foodies appeared first on EcoSalon.

Homemade food tastes better. It’s cheaper and uses less packaging. Still, while we may want to pickle those cute, little Persian cucumbers straight off the farm at the market, it turns out we might not know how. As such, Vanessa Barrington’s new cookbook, D.I.Y. Delicious comes to us in a timely manner. Vanessa’s cookbook explores recipes for many basic food staples you may have only recently considered making yourself. No time like the present!

For example, I never thought I’d find myself so excited to make porridge (boring), yogurt (too hard), or kimchi (really?)! However, after picking up D.I.Y. Delicious, my mind is spinning with all sorts of new staples I could make from scratch.

The first page of the cookbook starts with a dedication- -¦to every eater and cook who has ever asked the question, “˜Why can’t I make this myself?’” Now you can. The cookbook includes recipes of varying complexity from simple salad dressings and salsas to more involved projects such as making tortillas and crackers to fermenting and brewing sodas and tonics. Let the kitchen adventures begin! Plus, as a veteran chef in the Bay Area, Vanessa adds her own twist to basic recipes – fig jam becomes Fig-Rosemary Jam, sourdough bread becomes Sourdough Cornmeal-Pumpkin Seed Bread and aioli becomes Meyer Lemon and Parsley Aioli.

If you are in any way a D.I.Y kitchen type or have been aspiring to outfit your from-scratch pantry, this cookbook is definitely one you’ll want to have on your shelf for inspiration and reference. I know that I’m jumping on the crème fraiche bandwagon. And fresh tortillas? I’m in! And yes, I even can’t wait to make porridge.

The book sells as a hardcover with wonderful photographs by Sara Remington, designed by Suzanne LaGasa with a modern day homespun feel, and retails at Chronicle Books for $24.95.

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I love that everyone I know is canning and pickling this summer. It’s such a great way to preserve the harvest for later and it’s so gratifying to put up your own food.

Pickles are great for beginners because they are high enough in acid that they don’t need to be pressure canned and may even be made in small batches and simply refrigerated.

Pickled vegetables are versatile as snacks, delicious on sandwiches and can be chopped up in summer salads. And if you have any left you can always put them out at Thanksgiving on a relish tray full of goodies you made yourself.

Here’s a sampling of tasty pickles from around the web.

A little sweet, a little tart, bread and butter pickles are great on sandwiches and served with creamy goat cheese. This version from Smitten Kitchen looks like a winner.

Pickled okra is a classic Southern table pickle. I turn to Martha for her version.

Dilly Beans are great for snacking and in Bloody Marys. Here’s a recipe from Food in Jars, which is, incidentally, one of my favorite canning resources on the web.

Image: The Bitten Word

The post In a Pickle: Cucumbers, Okra, and Green Beans appeared first on EcoSalon.

The markets are full of every kind of produce imaginable. At the same time, backyard gardens burst with bounty, and the feral fruit trees in my neighborhood litter the sidewalks with juicy bombs. The harvest is upon us.

The cooks that I know are in a rush to preserve what is so abundant now for those days of kale, cabbage and rutabaga that we all know are ahead. So here’s a little inspiration from around the web.

Before you start, here’s an overview of helpful canning tips and recipes from Simple Bites.

Sour Cherries are a super short season crop so if you see any in your market, take them home and try this recipe for preserved sour cherries from Doris and Jilly Cook. They’ll taste mighty good in December.

From Put up or Shut up, there’s an interesting sounding Mexican Strawberry Jam recipe with candied hibiscus.

I love Japanese pickles. They always showcase the best qualities of the vegetables and aromatics used without overpowering with vinegar. And they’re great alongside just about anything from rice to noodles to meats to sandwiches. I’m trying this recipe from Japanese Food Report next time I have a bounty of cukes.

Image: Vanessa Barrington

The post Get Canning! 3 Recipes Plus Preserving Around the Web appeared first on EcoSalon.