Preserving Food

There is a ham that you can make yourself or buy in the stores and hang it up it is suppose to last for up to 5 years. I believe it is country style smoked hams??? Check it thru google to be sure. Also corned beef can last up to 1 year if kept in brine. Salt pork as well. My dad use to keep his salt pork for about 2 to 3 years.

Minced meat even if its not made with deer meat can last up to 3 years in a jar. If you want to have fruit and vegetables the #1 thing that I keep on hand is fruit rolls or fruit leather it can last up to 3 years if kept cool and dry.

For those of us that want some extra protein we can also buy marzipan made from peanuts, I have 4 large boxes already put away. Its about $3 for a box of 24. And its a great way to get protein and it will last for years.

My advice is to make sure that you have lots of honey on hand, honey will last for years and it also is good for people when they are sick with chest colds.

For those that dont have much room to grow plants you can grow some peppers in containers and keep them on your steps. I have 6 plants on my porch. Hot peppers are great pickled and sweet peppers are great if made into relishes. pickling cukes can be planted so they grow on fences and that takes up less space. I also do this for summer squash. You can also use window boxes for herbs.

Hilda

herbs should be dried in a dark place - hanging them in light will hasten evaporation of essential oils (ie scent/flavor). Either hang bunches of them in a dark place, or spread them on newspaper and put somewhere out of the light (like under a bed). When dry, crumble leaves or flowers (lavender) off the stalks and store in containers out of the light. Herbs can also be used to make herb oil and vinegars - bottles of good quality oil and vinegar are packed with herbs of your choice and steeped in the sun - say on a sunny windowsill. Pack more leaves in over several weeks until the oil/vinegar has a strong flavor.

I have made jam from honey & fruit alone - but I can't remember the proportion, sorry. I made plum jam and apricot jam - the jams lasted about 6 months (until they were eaten). The apricot jam was fantastic, the plum was not bad. The honey has to be the lightest in color you can find - otherwise the flavor is too strong for the fruit. The jam was made without water canning afterwards - just ensuring the jars were sterile before filling with jam and sealing.

I have also dried apricots in the sun - on a clean window fly screen apricot halves were arranged and covered with gauze to keep flies off. they'd dry in a couple of days in summer. The fruit will darken & go quite chewy. If the fruit was dipped in an ascorbic acid solution before drying it helped keep the color better. Commercial dried fruit is coated with metabisulphite which keeps color intact but I think that's been linked with health problems with allergy/ asthma sufferers. Apples can be dried by peeling, coring and slicing into rings then threading the rings of thin dowling or string. A dehydrator is of course much more efficent and you can make your own fruit leather in a dehydrator.

We have had succes with a food dehydrator and a vacuum sealer.

In the past I've bought large quantities of wheat, rice and beans and found that we ended up with bugs. The vacuum sealer is an investment but I think it has already paid for itself. You can use a vacuum sealer with regular or wide mouth mason jars (with an optional jar sealer) which will extend shelf life and kill any bugs. Mason jars are available pretty much anywhere and they are cheap.

The dehydrator is great for drying fruit and vegetables from the garden. We just bought this earlier this year so I can't tell you how long the fruit will keep.

I haven't tried traditional canning or pressure canning yet but if you have a garden this is a good way to keep fresh and appetizing food on hand after the growing season. It doesn't require a large investment (regular canning equipment) and it appears to be a pretty simple process.

reply to post by drift393


Yes, a book called "Square Foot Gardening" by Mel Bartholomew

This is my first season using this type of gardening and so far LOVIN it.

We also put in a greenhouse so we can continue to grow in the winter.

reply to post by drift393


Hi, yes a great book is one called "Square Foot Gardening" by Mel Bartholomew. We are trying this style this year and I am LOVIN it.

We also put in a greenhouse (as we live in the mountains) so we can continue to grow over the winter.

This is a very old thread but i wanted to add an update. I said earlier about a gooseberry liquor i was experimenting with. Well it had spent enough time in the alcohol so we broke it out to test it at a barbecue......................it was awful! Really doesn't suit being treated in this way so for anyone thinking of it i'd avoid wasting the fruit, yuck. The bullace liquor worked quite well as always.