Food Preservation - A Pictoral Tutorial
Posted by humboldt_honey on Jun 02, 2009 · Member since Feb 2007 · 12529 posts
I've decided to photograph the steps of different food preservation techniques. I'll try to do the first one this weekend and put the steps with photos here.
I like that site. A lot.
What I was doing here was showing people how to can without any special equipment/tools. I have all of the bells and whistles now, but when I first started - before I wanted to invest money in the process - I winged it.
Yep. I'm a hair-dyed-black, punk-music-listening, converse-wearing (vegan?) food preserver.
Yeah, I totally use whatever I have on hand, or have been handed down to do canning. My tomato press, if you can call it that, is the one my grand ma used to make purees and applesauce. It still works, sort of. I do need to get me one of those can grabbers, usually I just use tongs, but last year I dropped a jar hot out of the canner. Ouch! and a major mess. Lesson learned.
I am all about the punk music, am more a Birkenstock person, and have super short, super blonde (natural), super spiky hair! Whoo!
If you do make jam, find a different recipe. This doesn't have much blueberry flavor - and it's only blueberries and sugar. ??? The process would be the same.
---> Carrot Cake Jam is good. I get requests for it.
wowee carrot cake jam sounds amazing. I'm not a fan of berries and so jam for me is normally no more adventurous than apricot or maybe plum. But I definitely want to try that carrot cake stuff... mmmmm hungry....
Just wondering if there might be more awesome things to learn from this thread? :)
Yeah. I'm going to add to it. Two weekends ago I drove halfway up California to help a friend move and this past weekend I was making Iron Chef entries and doing landscape maintenance. Soooo... I was thinking about what I was going to do this weekend. I've been wanting to try pickling garlic for a year now, so I'm thinking of that. You don't reek of garlic ( :( & :) ) when eating it if it's pickled.
I like this explanation of pickled garlic (starts in the third paragraph down).
woooo garlic! *waits in excited anticipation for more news of garlicy goodness*
I hope you like it. As far as I know, garlic is harvested in late spring, so it's not the right season for the good stuff on your side of the globe. It's late spring here, so I'm going to the farmer's market on Saturday morning to look for locally grown organic garlic.
Last weekend I made pickled garlic. I mention that so I'm held accountable for getting the pictures uploaded. This weekend I was going to use my pressure canner, but the weather is perfect and I don't want to heat up my house. So, I'm making use of my Excalibur to make Raw Cheesz Itz.
I might do something else raw later. There's are different tortilla-ish recipe substitutes with veggies or coconut that are gluten-free wraps (as far as I know, right?), so I'll make those later. It's really all about getting the wrapper spread out thin enough to be a wrapper. It also takes an Excalibur to make the flat sheets and the recipe I'm making today takes any kind of dehydrator, which is why I picked it. It takes about a day and a half total time, so maybe before they're done I'll have the garlic pics up here.
I know why I haven't posted it yet. I can't find my camera.
For the new one, I'm making Raw Cheez Itz from recipezaar. Check out who posted it.
Dehydrator
I decided that my first recipe should be one that someone could make using any kind of dehydrator, so I made the tasty Cheez Itz. I'm thinking about doing another recipe later for, essentially, raw tortilla-like (read GLUETEN FREE) wrappers, but they'd take an Excalibur dehydrator in order to make the sheets.
*Note: my photo editing program was wonky, so I couldn't resize my photos to be smaller.
1 cup sunflower seed
1 cup brazil nut
1 cup almonds
1 tomato
1 cup red pepper, diced
1/4 cup flax seed, ground
1 pinch cumin
2 teaspoons salt
(I also added ground black pepper, which I think added something that otherwise would have been missing.)
Step 1: Soak the nuts for four hours. I used filtered water.
http://i924.photobucket.com/albums/ad84/humboldt_honey_food_preservation/DehydratorCrackersStep01-soaknuts.jpg
Step 2: Grind the flax seed and roughly chop the tomato and bell pepper (this is just to help it blend in the food processor)
http://i924.photobucket.com/albums/ad84/humboldt_honey_food_preservation/DehydratorCrackersStep02-grindflaxs.jpg
http://i924.photobucket.com/albums/ad84/humboldt_honey_food_preservation/DehydratorCrackersStep03-choptomato.jpg
Step 3: In batches, place the ingredients in a food processor and blend until relatively smooth. The amount in the processor in the pic is WAY too much. I ened up doing seven batches for a double recipe. Place the tomato and bell pepper at the bottom of the processor because their juiciness helps the blending process. Also, I used roma tomatoes, which aren't as juicy. If I made this again with romas, I'd add a smidgeon of filtered water to each batch to help it blend.
http://i924.photobucket.com/albums/ad84/humboldt_honey_food_preservation/DehydratorCrackersStep04-foodproces.jpg
Step 4: Spread the mixture onto drying sheets. It stuck to my hands and didn't get very smooth. I'd almost think it was worth it to add enough water during the food processing portion for it to spread/pour smooth, even if that meant a longer drying time. It doesn't matter if I'm going to eat them, but if I'm going to share them, I'd like the crackers to look a bit nicer.
http://i924.photobucket.com/albums/ad84/humboldt_honey_food_preservation/DehydratorCrackersStep05-spreadouto.jpg
Step 5: Dry the crackers for about 8 hours. Then cut them into pieces. I left the crackers for more like 10 hours. The dryer areas were brittle and didn't cut into nice squares. The moist areas stuck to the mesh. What I did was to peel the crackers off the of the mesh and then cut them. I think it would work better to leave them on the mesh and simply score them instead of cutting and separating them.
http://i924.photobucket.com/albums/ad84/humboldt_honey_food_preservation/DehydratorCrackersStep07-cutintosqu.jpg
Step 6 - Finished product.
http://i924.photobucket.com/albums/ad84/humboldt_honey_food_preservation/DehydratorCrackersStep08-finalprodu.jpg
I used the pickled garlic recipe from Gourmet Garlic Gardens.
12 large heads garlic
2-1/2 cups (625 mL) white vinegar
1 cup (250 mL) dry white wine
1 tablespoon (15 mL) pickling salt or kosher salt
1 tablespoon (15 mL) granulated sugar
1 tablespoon (15 mL) dried oregano
5 dried whole chili peppers
yield: approximately five half-pint jars (I got six).
Step 1: Separate garlic bulbs into cloves.
http://i408.photobucket.com/albums/pp167/humhon/01-Separategarlicbulbs.jpg
Step 2: Place garlic cloves in a strainer.
http://i408.photobucket.com/albums/pp167/humhon/02-Putin.jpg
Step 3: Place strainer in boiling water for 30 seconds to blanch.
http://i408.photobucket.com/albums/pp167/humhon/03.jpg
Step 4: Transfer cloves to bowl of cold water. Once cool, drain the water.
http://i408.photobucket.com/albums/pp167/humhon/04.jpg
Step 5: Peel the cloves of garlic by cutting off the bottom (tough) end of the garlic clove. The rest of the skin will slip off.
http://i408.photobucket.com/albums/pp167/humhon/05.jpg
Step 6: In a stainless steel saucepan, combine vinegar, wine, pickling salt, sugar and oregano. Bring to a boil; boil gently 1 minute; remove from heat.
http://i408.photobucket.com/albums/pp167/humhon/07.jpg
Step 7: Add garlic cloves and stir constantly for 1 minute.
http://i408.photobucket.com/albums/pp167/humhon/08.jpg
Step 8: Pack garlic and 1 dried whole chili pepper into a hot to within 3/4-inch (2 cm) of top rim. Add hot liquid to cover garlic to within 1/2-inch (1 cm) of top rim.
Using rubber spatula, remove air bubbles. Wipe jar rim removing any stickiness.
Cover each jar with a lid that has been in simmering water for at least 10 minutes. Apply screw band just until fingertip tight.
http://i408.photobucket.com/albums/pp167/humhon/10.jpg
Here’s a picture of the chili peppers I forgot to include.
http://i408.photobucket.com/albums/pp167/humhon/11.jpg
Step 9: Place jars in canner. The canner in the picture is a steam canner. There was a peer-reviewed study done at a university that showed that food gets hot enough in a steam canner, so even though it’s not USDA-approved, I use it.
Cover canner; return water to a boil. Process -- boil filled jars -- 10 minutes, or adjusted as needed for altitude.
Note: At elevations higher than 305 m (1,000 ft) increase processing time. Add 5 minutes at 306 to 915 m (1,000-3,000 ft); add 10 minutes at 916 to 1830 m (3,001-6,000 ft); add 15 minutes at elevations higher than 1831 m (6,0001 ft).
http://i408.photobucket.com/albums/pp167/humhon/13.jpg
http://i408.photobucket.com/albums/pp167/humhon/12.jpg
Step 10: Remove jars. Cool undisturbed 24 hours. Check jar seals. Sealed lids curve downward. Remove screw bands; wipe and dry bands and jars. Store screw bands separately or replace loosely on jars, as desired. Label and store in a cool, dark place.
http://i408.photobucket.com/albums/pp167/humhon/14.jpg
I forgot to add, pickled garlic then needs to sit for four to six weeks in order to ferment. Once a jar is open, store it in the refrigerator.
---> Carrot Cake Jam is good. I get requests for it.
I mentioned the idea of this jam to my mum yesterday and she was suitably impressed/excited.
I think it's going on next weekend's overly-ambitious-plans-you-know-you-won't-get-time-for list.
ok, so I had mad trouble trying to find fruit pectin.
Maybe it was just me now knowing where to look, but anyway, I've been trying to buy some for about four months now - and I found it last Sunday!!! : D
soooooo JAM is definitely on the menu this weekend! soooo excited : )
This thread is awesome! I am excited to try making some pickled stuff! Never been a jam fan but it looks so much fun I might have to try anyway.
Yay! Let me know how it goes if you make it.
I got a pressure canner this summer and I've been waiting for it to cool down before I use it. It's finally getting chilly. In honor of that, I'm going to do a chili canning tutorial sometime before the end of the year (hopefully by the end of November, but I'm doing NaNoWriMo so maybe not).
This thread is making me want to try my hand at making jam. I suspect that HH's proficiency makes it look far easier than it actually is though ;)
woooooo I did it! I made my very first jam, the hh-endorsed carrot cake jam, and it was actually pretty easy : )
The whanau tested it out yesterday afternoon, and the verdict from my husband was that it is 'as good, if not better' than any other jam he has tasted before.
soooo... people are gonna be getting carrot cake jam for Christmas : )
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