How To Preserve Cotton Stalks

To achieve optimal food preservation, note the first year or two what, when, where and how you stored your produce. These building plans include ventilated shelves, drawers and bins to accommodate different types of produce, but you can customize them...

Tips for Fermenting If you want to try fermenting in your own farmstead kitchen, here are some tips, tricks and tools to keep in mind for your fermenting foray. Try these recipes to make some delicious fermented products.

For an energy boost after a long day of work, we steer away from caffeine and stick to cold ice water or kombucha . Unlike a fresh green salad, kale salad improves in texture and flavor as it sits in the fridge a day or so.

(Doing so crystallizes the syrup.) When you hear the seal pop, you've succeeded in making and preserving one pint of maple syrup that will keep with or without refrigeration for 10 to 12 months.

Just use the largest burner and proceed as usual. We hope to shed some light on the experience to make it less scary. Tags Lists , pressure canner , pressure canning Acids in some foods, such as fruits, help inhibit that bacteria and can be canned with...

Bag vegetables separately (in perforated plastic) for storage. Coolers can be kept outside, topped with hay or a blanket, or moved to a garage in order to adjust and control the temperature.

Cool to room temperature. He puts Tabasco sauce on steamed broccoli, crushed red pepper flakes on his pasta, and diced Thai chilies in his scrambled eggs—and I'm not even going to tell you what he puts on a homemade pizza.

Ready to make pickles and ferments? So how do you know when your sauerkraut, dill pickle, or other pickled or fermented food offers these helpful microorganisms? Also called fresh-pack or quick-process pickling, this is the method of covering the fruit...

Pressure canning meat is often considered an advanced canning skill, but the rewards are too good not to accept the challenge. Have No Fear The pressure-canning process is intimidating to many people because pressure canners steam and hiss; however, it's...

Add to baths along with Epsom salts for relaxation and relief from sore muscles. I usually use a few drops to 1/4 teaspoon at a time, mixed with a spoonful of raw honey. After this time, strain and decant into a clean, sterile canning jar.

First, a bit of historical jar trivia, gleaned from www.pickyourown.org : The glass Mason jar, with its reusable, screw-top lid, was invented in 1858 by a tin smith named John L. Up until that time, home canners had to make due with a glass jar, flat...

Tomatoes (Sauce, Pureed or Whole) Susy Morris/Flickr Add to chili . Fruits in Very Light Syrup Roslyn/Flickr Eat from the jar for breakfast or a snack; add a 1/4 cup cream or half-and-half for extra indulgence.

Lemons You can pickle and preserve citrus and rinds for various uses and recipes. Peppers Pickled peppers vary widely depending on the type of pepper used, the preparation method and the brine.

“Open Kettle Canning” or “Upside Down Sealing” (still often recommended in European texts) are both vintage sealing methods no longer considered safe. I cringe in my classes and presentations when students reveal that their canning experience...

Specialty flours—such as buckwheat, rice, rye, barley, almond and oat flours—do not contain the necessary gluten to have a consistent rise and a stable final product, unless combined with wheat flour.

And so do humans! Wild-plum jam, jelly and pie are yummy! You can dry wild plums for later use, too. Done! When you thaw it you can eat it plain or as topping for ice cream, pancakes or Lemon and Olive Oil Cake .

“Too much space can make it difficult for the jar to create the vacuum seal. “As long as the bubbles aren't moving on their own, which would indicate bacterial fermentation, they're perfectly safe—though you may get some discoloration where they...

In water-bath canning, packed jars are immersed in at least one inch of boiling water for an allotted time—nothing could be simpler! Canning jars Buy them new, packed one dozen per package, at grocery stores, hardware stores and the like, in 1¼2 pint,...

As a safety precaution, take your pressure canner to your local cooperative extension office so they can check the dial gauge for accuracy and recalibrate it as necessary to ensure your food will reach the desired temperature for safe preservation.

Called “poor man's capers,” green nasturtium seed pods are often pickled and used in dishes that call for the real deal. Salted, pickled, often found adding a piquant punch to mediterranean cuisine and a vital ingredient in tartar sauce, capers are...

The pressure canner is a valuable tool in home food preservation as long as you take measures to ensure your equipment is in working order and you follow acceptable canning practices.

This also raises the question of the amount of salt that should be used. “You don't have to be afraid to taste it.” Yet, for those of us with less experience, staring into a bucket of vegetables that doesn't quite look like the photos we saw online...

Hall experiments with aging vinegars by storing them in vessels to enhance and mellow the flavors. Even the most attentive cook can accidentally make vinegar when an open bottle of wine turns or apple cider starts to ferment .

Problem No. 4: Loose Bands Sometimes jars fail to seal because the band was not screwed down tightly enough before processing. When you've gone to the trouble of washing your jars, preparing your food and pressure canning it, then you know the joy of...

If colorful or black molds form, the ferment is probably no longer safe. Pack your veggies tightly into your vessel. However, for vegetables you wish to remain whole— cucumbers and beans for example—brining is best.

Plant Too Much We all know the zucchini jokes about sticking them in your neighbor's car when they aren't looking. Compost Composting may truly be the ultimate patriotic act—creative recycling at its finest.

Evelyn Crayton, extension foods and nutrition specialist at Alabama Cooperative Extension System, recommends four main types of freezer-grade packaging: rigid containers: reusable glass or plastic containers with airtight lids; suitable to most foods...