Preserving our own food.

[shawndonna]

Part of homesteading is preserving the food we eat. Canning season is upon us soon. I am looking for recipes for pickled beets,bread and butter pickles as well as dill pickles. How about salsa???? Freezing veggies is another way to preserve but I will need help with this too as I am a novice at both canning and freezing. Thanks

[bhugo]

Do you have a "ball blue book?"

It has some great pickle recipes as well as a lot of good info about safe canning and freezing. I use mine a lot. It is cheap and sold in most grocery stores next to canning supplies.

[swampbuck]

do a google search or check with your cooperative extension service. I can and freeze food from my LARGE garden. it is well worth it not only in money but in the sense of knowing what you are feeding your family.

for instance look at the ingredients on a can of tomatoe juice. mine has 1 ingredient tomatoes!

[shawndonna]

Thanks for the ideas. I always seem to over blanch my veggies when freezing.

[kbkrause]

Do you have a "ball blue book?"

It has some great pickle recipes as well as a lot of good info about safe canning and freezing. I use mine a lot. It is cheap and sold in most grocery stores next to canning supplies.

Great book for canning and freezing I think it runs about $5

[bhugo]

Thanks for the ideas. I always seem to over blanch my veggies when freezing.

I have been cutting back on my blanching time also. Broccoli seems to freeze real well with a short blanch. Sugar snap peas seemed better too with a really short blanch. Do you ever salt your blanch water?

[fasthunter]

This is something that I would like to get into more whenever I get a yard. I think it's really cool. The more that you can feed yourself off of the land the better.:)

[tangleknot]

We can and freeze a ton of stuff every year. Ball blue book was what we started with several years ago and it's pretty dog earred now.

Like swampbuck said, it's nice knowing what your are feeding your family.

Growing and drying your own herbs can be a great money saver, too. We dry chives, mint, basil(plus make pesto), oregano, etc.

[Backwoods-Savage]

Thanks for the ideas. I always seem to over blanch my veggies when freezing.

We do not blanch any veggies at all and the veggies taste much better and keep just as good.

Edit: My wife said when blanching a lot of the nutrients go into the water so in order to keep it you would have to freeze the veggies with the water you used to blanch. Yes, much better to not blanch.

For example: Sweet corn. Just cut off the cob, put in freezer bag and put into freezer. Makes the job much easier for better tasting corn.