Preservation Link Roundup 3/24/10

Tigress in a Pickle provides the full roundup for the March Can Jam (Can Jam March Round-Up: Allium). A must read, but that pun "can i officially change the name to all-yums?", ouch. ;-)

Keep an eye on Food in Jars for the secret ingredient for April's Can Jam.

All Types of Cooking, and a Whole Lot of Canning Here! explains how easy it is to pressure can chicken (Chicken Breast). Yep! Jane chooses chicken breast because they prefer it. I prefer legs and thighs myself (dark meat is more flavorful, IMHO), but when I can chicken I use breast. White meat seems to can better: less fat and looks better in the jar. Probably that is why you usually see "white meat" in commercially canned chicken.

Big Black Dogs makes a classic flavor combination for a spicy pepper jelly (Savory Cheddar and Pepper Jelly Cookies). There are other ways to go as well. Instead of just flour, use a cornmeal based cheddar cookie. I've made spicy jelly tarts, with a cheesy tart crust - you get a higher jelly-to-crust ratio. Or match the cheese and jelly inside a mini-turnover. There are many, many options for this flavor pairing.

What about a cornmeal cake with pepper jelly filling? It would be an interesting alternative take on a Victoria Sponge (aka Victoria Sandwich), which is a two-layer sponge cake separated by jam. The Atlantic Food Channel provides history, background and recipe for this classic tea cake (Victorian England: Age of War, Politics, and Cake).

In another post related to using home preserved foods Cold Cereal and Toast makes another classic: applesauce cookies (Baking Gems: Applesauce Cookies). Apple sauce is one of those things that should really be a pantry staple as it can be used in numerous sweet and/or savory recipes as well as in baking. And compared to things like marmalades, it is very, very easy to make and can.

Farm to Table has an excellent post on the great health benefits of nettles (Stinging Nettles are Good for You). One thing I didn't know before reading this article was that nettles could be dehydrated.

You can also dry the nettle for tea or tinctures either by hanging bunches of it upside down in a cool, dry place, or by using your dehydrator. Either way, wash the leaves right after harvesting.

If dehydrating, remove the leaves from the stem. Allow the leaves to air dry for about 30 minutes or pat dry with paper towel. Place the leaves in a dehydrator, spreading them out on the rack in single rows, making sure to not pile the leaves on top of each other. Keep enough space between each leaf so there is good air circulation.

Dehydrate for 8 to 10 hours or until the leaves are completely dry (to avoid mold). If necessary, rotate the tray a few times through out dehydrating. Store in an airtight container until ready to use.

Hmmm, nettle tea. Sounds good to me.

Two great posts yesterday on making labels for your jars.

Wendolonia made some Lemon Ginger Marmalade and some very impressive labels to go with it. Now she has generously shared the template for download - and in three color combinations - excellent for orange, lime or lemon-based preserves (Printable Marmalade Canning Labels).

Hitchiking to Heaven gives step-by-step instructions for how she makes some simply beautiful labels (Easy DIY Canning Labels). I'd never thought of using stamps on labels before. What a brilliant idea. She also uses a color wash to add more interest. Again, gorgeous.

Thanks to both for providing their labeling info.

The Kitchn links to a Princeton study that High Fructose Corn Syrup is more likely to cause obesity than regular sugar (Scientists Finally Prove High Fructose Corn Syrup Risks). All the more reason to cook at home and preserve your own foods. Although jams and jellies shouldn't be a major part of one's diet, many commercial versions contain HFCS, while home preserved ones generally don't. The same goes for such things as bread-and-butter pickles and similar. Every little bit helps.

Molecular gastronomy might not be for everyone, but I find the concept of perfect, relatively labor-free citrus supremes quite intriguing. The mad cooking scientists of Cooking Issues use enzymes to remove the pith from citrus, leaving perfect supremes behind, as well as pith-free skin (Enzymatic Peeling? Hell Yes!).

And, finally, the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal picks a canner as their cook of the week (Tupelo, Mississippi, Cook of the Week: Mantachie Mother Makes Time in Busy Day to Preserve).

"Canning and putting up vegetables is my passion," said Moore, who works in the central billing office for North Mississippi Medical Clinics. "I just love looking at them."

Last year, the 45-year-old put up pepper jelly, hotdog slaw, muscadine jelly, raspberry fig preserves, blueberry syrup, canned tomatoes, canned green beans, tomato relish, pear preserves, banana peppers, apple butter and canned okra.

Wow. I'm such a slacker.

Preservation Link Roundup 2/28/10

Chickens in the Road has a nice little tutorial on making your own lard from excess fat (Make Your Own Lard). I'm not so sure about canning the lard, that isn't recommended by the USDA as far as I know, but freezing is a good way to store it.

Cooking in lard itself can be a food preservation method. The root of the cooking term "confit", for example, actually comes from the French word meaning "to preserve". By cooking and storing duck or goose in its own rendered fat, the meat could be preserved for months without refrigeration. That isn't recommended now, but you can still make confit today and store it in the refrigerator for a month if it isn't salt cured, and several months if it is first salt cured and then confited. The same principle works for such items as rillettes, which were made and then preserved with a layer of fat on top.

Slow cookers (aka Crock Pots) are a great and easy way to make confit.

Well Preserved is getting started in making sauerkraut (Fermenting Sauerkraut - Day 1). Excellent! When you want to get started in experimenting with fermented food, sauerkraut is the one I recommend to start with. It is quick and easy to prepare ... and they virtually always work. And, once you've got the basics down, it is easy to modify with various spices and other vegetables to make an almost infinite variety of different flavors and textures.

Laughing Duck Farm is giving away a retro-canning book (retro in look, updated in safety - The Farmer's Wife Canning & Preserving Cookbook), all you have to do to enter is post a comment on their blog (!!!! Giveaway !!!!).

Speaking of retro, 40sZen on Etsy is selling some vintage canning labels (Vintage Canning Jar Labels Rust Craft, in Box). They're cool just to look at.

Tigress in a Pickle goes over this month's Can Jam - alliums (Alliums). Kitchen Jam has some quick ideas, but intends to do more research (Tigress CanJam March: Exploring Alliums This Month).

Preservation Link Roundup 2/11/10

Homegrown.org points out that the Smithsonian Institute has an incredible collection of vintage seed catalogs, which they then use to turn into gorgeous homemade seed envelopes (DIY Seed Envelopes: Museum-Quality). Why not use some of these images to make jar labels?

Couponing in Critical Times has a post that not only shares local bargains (if you live in Knoxville, TN) but, if you scroll near the bottom, has a very nice set of tips for using dehydrated fruits (Stockpiling, Emergency Preparedness, and Food Security). For example,

Most recipes call for you to rehydrate the foods in a warm liquid. Instead of using water, try to use a more flavorful liquid. For fruits use warm juice or if you prefer wine or brandy. For vegetables, use the cooking liquid from your soup or a stock or broth.

Food preservation guru Linda Ziedrich discusses her experiment with curing her own olives, one batch with brine, one with lye (Cure Your Own Olives). She uses the University of California's Olives: Safe Methods for Home Pickling - ANR publication 8267 [PDF]. Another note, she lets us know that you can buy raw olives online, if you don't have a tree readily available, or want to try different varieties.

Preservation Link Roundup 2/5/10

If you're interested in some good ideas for organizing your cabinets and spices while "Taking Stock," Serious Eats has a collection of suggestions (Weekend Cook and Tell Round Up: Catastrophic Cupboard Cleanup).

Cut Out + Keep has step-by-step instructions for turning any photo you have into a canning label (for the top of the can - on the disposable lid) using Microsoft Word (Canning Labels). Too bad I'm too cheap (and devoted to open source) to use Word; I prefer OpenOffice. I'll have to check to see whether I can do the same with OpenOffice.

The Chicago Tribune reports that Wisconsin's governor has signed into law a bill that will let home canners sell their goods at farmers' markets and the like without a professional kitchen license, so long as they sell less than $5,000 of goods a year (Wis. Gov Signs Martial Arts, Canning Bills).

Vermont's Burlington Free Press reported on a fund raiser to support local food for food shelters and schools - a "Souper Bowl" featuring soups made from local ingredients (Mad River Localvore's Souper Bowl Benefits Community). Not only is this a clever idea, but some of participants used canned and frozen ingredients in order to stay local in the middle of winter:

Like the local butternut squash and roasted peppers Flanagan also used, many ingredients had been pulled from freezers or canning jars, a reminder that it helps to plan when eating locally through the winter. Harwood Union High School’s chicken and corn chowder was made with local Neill Farm corn husked and shucked by the girls’ soccer team last fall as a community service and team-building project, said Paul Morris, food service director.