Preserving the Summer

I have a proposal for our Winter Binge. My thought is that we preserve the harvest now (from our gardens or the farmers market) through pickling, canning, fermenting, freezing or drying. These ingredients will then be used in our Winter Meal together.

I suspect that amongst us there is a range of experience with food preservation. With this in mind, I would like to suggest a few resources.


Ball Canning Recipes. Ball has a website with a number of recipes for canning, freezing and dehydrating: Fresh Preserving. I also have one of their books that I would be happy to share. It give the basic information about preservation in addition to the recipes.
PickYourOwn.orgPickYourOwn.org. I love this website. The directions include step by step pictures. You can get easy instructions on you to can and freeze about any fruit or vegetable.
The Preservation Kitchen by Paul Virant. This local chef, interviewed by both Laura and Lori, has an award winning restaurant in Western Springs. His book's first half includes interesting and unusual preserving recipes. The second half has dinner recipes that incorporate the preserved foods. It's excellent. I have tried a number of the recipes and I give it a two thumbs up. The book is available at the library. Laura has suggested a road trip out to the restaurant together and I would love it!

I hope everyone is up for this. Please don't buy any equipment. Freezing takes nothing more than plastic bags. I have a dehydrator to lend. If someone would like to give canning a try, I also have a boiling water canner with wire rack, etc.

I plan to host the Winter Binge in January but we all will need to think about preserving the harvest now :)

Are we up for this?

Betsy