Preservation Link Roundup 3/6/10

Stony Run Farm provides some very simple instructions for making a solar dehydrator from scraps (An Afternoon in the Garage). It requires a little woodshop skill, an old window and some wood scraps but not that much. If you check around the interwebs, you can find a number of different ways of making solar dehydrators. Just be careful that in our summer sun and heat your dehydrator isn't actually an oven.
via Two Frog Home

The Atlantic's Food Channel has some good suggestions for pantry staples that, when you need to cook out of your pantry, make life a good deal easier (A Southern Pantry for Stress-Free Meals).

The LA Weekly's Squid Ink keeps us up-to-date on seasonal produce, this week highlighting that most delicious of thistles, the artichoke (What's in Season at the Farmers Markets: Artichokes). There is some nice history and a brief discussion of the various varieties.

Artichokes can be pickled. The best artichokes for pickling are the small "baby" artichokes that you can eat whole, usually they are cut in half for pickling, pretty easy. You can pickle just the hearts, but trimming artichokes down to the heart is an awful lot of effort.

For more on what's fresh in the markets, check out Good Food every week (What's Fresh at the Farmers Market This Week). That rhubarb looks darn good.

Wisteria - Wisteria - Wisteria
It's that time of year again! Sierra Madre is hosting their annual wisteria festival Sunday, March 14th (2010 Sierra Madre Wisteria Festival). The Huntington Library also has some fine wisteria as well. The food preservation take? Wisteria makes a fine, delicately floral scented jelly. The violet color is lovely as well. CAUTION: Only the violet wisteria flowers are edible. Not the leaves, vines, roots, and ESPECIALLY not the seeds.

LampGoods' shop on Etsy has a cool looking hanging lamp made from a vintage Mason jar (Orono. Vintage BALL CANNING Jar PENDANT made NEW).

What is it with fermented cabbage and soups? Why do they work so well? Serious Eats publishes a Momfuku recipe for kimchi stew (The Momofuku Cookbook's Kimchi Stew with Rice Cakes).

All Types of Cooking, and a Whole Lot of Canning Here! always keeps a supply of home canned tuna on hand. She shares her technique and some good photos (Canning Tuna). I haven't canned tuna myself, but I definitely have it on my list of things I want to can.

I doubt canned tuna is the recipe Creative Canning is excited about canning when her new All American canner arrives soon (All American Canner). But she's right to be excited. The All American is, IMHO, the best pressure canner out there.

Nutrition Know How has a good list of things to do in order to get ready for canning season (Gear Up for Canning Season).

And, last but not least I take the time to go through my canned items. I check for any change in the canned items, and when the item was processed. I try to use all the items canned from the previous year before my next season starts. So if I have items that I have not used from the previous year, I know that I need to plan some menu’s that will include those canned goods before I start canning again.

Finally, it is a bit late in the season, but Slow Food USA has declared 2010 the year of the heirloom apple (Let 2010 be the Year of the Heirloom Apple). So, later this year, let's all can some heirloom varietal apple products. We might find that some of these heirlooms, which aren't great for out of hand eating, are very well-suited to particular canning recipes.