Frugal Living-Denver

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Food storage      
Canning:  As your garden grows, you should learn how to can.  You will be able to store your home grown food and enjoy the fruits of your labor. 

Canning isn't just something you do.  It is something you learn to do, and do it right, lest you poison your family with food poisoning.

There are basically two types of canning: Water bath, and pressure canning. 


Photos by Cathy Shattuck
Water bath: Most of your acidic foods can be water bath canned, that is to say, tomatoes, and fruits, and chile peppers.  Most salsa recipes can also be water bath.  Also, any type of pickling can be water bath canned.  If you are unsure of yourself, ask your local extension office for food types that can be water bath canned.  I love my water bath canner.  It has done so much for my family.  I think home canned food is beautiful.


Photos by Cathy Shattuck

Pickling requires a brine, which is basically a salt water mixture of sorts.  Different recipes call for different kinds of brine.  So get a good book on pickling if you decide you want to put up say, cucumber pickles.  My kids loved them.  One year I put up 17 quarts of pickles and my kids ate them all in a months time.
Many old recipes use alum.  It is a by-product of aluminum and should be used with great hesitation if at all.  I used grape leaves in my pickles, which form a natural alum and is non-toxic.  My neighbor had a wonderful concord grape vine and I could have all of the grape leaves I wanted.  Plus you can use them for exotic recipes, like stuffed grape leaves...Yumm.



Photos by Cathy Shattuck

Pressure canning is done for everything else. For example: you can pressure can all of your vegetables from the garden such as green beans, and corn.  However, many of your vegetables that can be pressure canned don't necessarily taste good pressure canned.  Like corn, carrots, and broccoli, I prefer them to be frozen, they taste so much better that way.
If you buy a used pressure canner, be sure to get it checked out by the county extension office, to make sure that it is accurate.  Otherwise your best efforts may be ruined by inaccuracy.


Photos by Cathy Shattuck

Dehydrating:  Drying your food is a very good idea!  Every household should always have some kind of dried food in their pantry in case of an emergency or natural disaster.  You could easily dehydrate nearly everything you grow.  It doesn't take up alot of room and you don't have to worry about buying canning jars and special equipment.  Well except for the dehydrator.  Although in the old days, many women simply cut up there produce and ran a thread through it and hung it out to dry in the air.  Then when it was perfectly dried you put it in the pantry in jars.  A word of caution though.  It has to be completely dry and not hot or warm lest it sweat in the container and grow mold.



Photos by Cathy Shattuck


Freezing your food:  Freezing food is especially nice for certain kinds.  For example, I love to put a bushel of green chile in the freezer every late summer.  Corn also freezes well.  Most of your veggies only need to be blanched for several seconds before plunging them into cold water.  You can then run them through your salad spinner and put them into freezer bags.  Write the veggie and the date on the bag before filling it and then simply put your veggies in the freezer.  You can find a good book on food preservation if you need the exact amount of seconds to blanch the vegetable.
If you plan on freezing any kind of berry, just freeze fresh.  It is a good idea to put them on a cookie sheet first and slip it into the freezer for about five minutes.  Then take the cookie sheet out and fill your freezer bag with the frozen berries.  Put them back into the freezer.  In this manner your berries will be individually frozen and not all clumped together in one mass.

I will post some useful tips on storing food here...so check back often.