The Everything Guide to Living Off the Grid (16 page)

Modern pressure canners are lightweight, thin-walled aluminum or stainless-steel kettles. Most have twist-on lids fitted with gaskets. They have removable racks, a weighted vent port (steam vent), and a safety vent. They also have either a dial gauge for indicating the pressure or a weighted gauge that rattles when the appropriate pressure has been reached.

Place the specific amount of water into the canner, along with the rack. Place the canner on the burner and bring the water to a boil. Place the filled jars, already fitted with lids, on the rack in the canner. Place the canner lid on the canner and twist to seal it down. Initially leave the pressure weight off the vent port until the water boils and steam escapes strongly from the open vent. Let the steam flow for ten minutes. Place the weight on the vent. Once the pressure gauge has indicated the proper pressure, or the weight has begun to rattle, you can start timing your jars according to the recipe you use. Adjust the stove temperature to maintain the desired pressure. Once the time has elapsed, turn the heat off and allow the canner to cool down until the pressure is vented.

DO NOT try to open the canner while there is still pressure inside. This can cause a serious scalding.

Once the canner has cooled, lift off the weight, open the top, and remove the jars. Carefully place the jars onto a towel or wooden board.

Drying Food

Perhaps the oldest method of preserving food is drying it. Drying is the process of removing water from food to prevent the growth of microorganisms and decay. Air-drying food is more applicable to people living in a warm and dry climate, but with today’s countertop dehydrators, even leftovers can be chopped into smaller pieces, placed into a dryer, and packaged for later.

You might be surprised to learn that drying foods actually saves more of the nutrient value. Because drying foods is achieved at a lower temperature, the digestive enzymes, which break down food in the course of digestion, and other nutrients are not destroyed. Drying is more economical than canning or freezing, saves space, and provides nutrition.

Drying foods is not as precise as canning and freezing because it involves so many factors, including type of food, water content, climate, and humidity. However, there are some basic guidelines that should be followed. Start with fresh, unblemished, unspoiled food. Cut food into small, thin slices. Place food so it does not overlap. Turn food frequently to ensure a consistent dehydration. Store dried foods in a closed container at room temperature and use within one year.

You can dry many different kinds of fruits, vegetables, herbs, and meats. You are primarily looking for denser material that does not hold a lot of liquid. For example, watermelon is not a good fruit to dry. It’s a good idea to start off with a small batch of whichever food you want to dry to see if you are satisfied with the taste, texture, and color of the finished product.

You might want to see which foods are commercially dried, like cherries, apples, herbs, and beef, to give you an idea of some of the things you might want to dry at first. Then feel free to use your knowledge and experiment with other foods, following the appropriate safety standards.

Air-Drying

The process of air-drying is very easy. You gather the produce you want to air-dry, hang it in a clean, dry area that has good air circulation, and check on it occasionally to view its progress. Air-drying is often done with herbs.

Air-drying is not only the easiest and least expensive way to dry fresh herbs; the slow drying process doesn’t deplete the herbs of their oils. This process works best with herbs that don’t have high moisture content, like bay, dill, marjoram, oregano, rosemary, summer savory, and thyme.

To dry herbs, gather clean herbs together by their stems, place them in a paper sack with holes punched in it for air circulation, and hang them upside down in a warm, airy room. You can also air-dry small red peppers by threading them onto floral wire or twine and hanging them in a warm room.

Electric Drying

Electric food dehydrators come in a variety of models and have many capabilities. Dehydrators with multiple trays will save you time because you will be able to process more produce at the same time. Dehydrators with higher wattage will also save time because the higher temperature will decrease the drying time. Because fruits, vegetables, and meats should be dried at different temperatures, an adjustable thermostat that gives you the freedom to select different temperatures is useful.

Pickling

Pickling is one of the oldest methods of preserving foods and is a process that can be applied to vegetables, meats, eggs, and fruit. Pickling is the preserving of food in an acid, such as vinegar, and it is this acidic environment that prevents growth of undesirable bacteria.

The varieties of pickled and fermented foods are classified by ingredients and method of preparation. Regular dill pickles and sauerkraut are fermented and cured for about three weeks. Refrigerator dills are fermented for about one week. Fresh-pack or quick-process pickles are not fermented; some are brined several hours or overnight, then drained and covered with vinegar and seasonings. Fruit pickles usually are prepared by heating fruit in seasoned syrup acidified with either lemon juice or vinegar. Relishes are made from chopped fruits and vegetables that are cooked with seasonings and vinegar.

Most pickled foods are salted or soaked in brine first to draw out moisture that would dilute the acid used to safely preserve the food.

As mentioned before, the safety of canning relies on the acidity of the contents of the jar. The level of acidity in a pickled product is as important to its safety as it is to taste and texture. Make sure you are using vinegar with a 4 to 6 percent acid to be safe, although many food safety professionals are now advising 5 percent. Do not alter vinegar, food, or water proportions in a recipe and do not use vinegar with unknown acidity. Use only recipes with tested proportions of ingredients. Select fresh, unspoiled, and unblemished fruits or vegetables. Use canning or pickling salt. White vinegar is usually preferred when light color is desirable, as is the case with fruits and cauliflower.

Freezing

Freezing food is an excellent method of food preservation. It allows many foods to be stored for weeks or even months longer than they can be in the refrigerator and to be defrosted as needed, with no or very little loss of quality and nutrients.

Freeze food as quickly as possible after harvest. Never freeze food that has even the smallest degree of spoilage. When freezing non-liquid foods, such as vegetables or loose berries, fill your freezer containers as full as
possible, because air dries out food. For example, when freezing blueberries you should clean the berries and air-dry them. Then pack them tightly into containers, being sure not to crush them, but filling the container to capacity. If you’re freezing liquids, remember to leave expansion space in the containers. To keep items from freezing into one big block of produce, spread them out on cookie sheets and initially freeze them this way. When frozen, transfer to a container.

Freezing doesn’t entirely halt the action of enzymes that break down food, so anything stored longer than twelve months should be thrown away.

The National Center for Home Food Preservation offers an online manual for the blanching times for certain fruits and vegetables before freezing. This process is done to inhibit destructive enzymes that break down food over time. You can find that information at
www.uga.edu/nchfp/how/freeze/blanching.html
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CHAPTER 10
Building a Root Cellar

Root cellar storage keeps vegetables and fruits fresh longer because of the temperature and climate in the cellar. Planning your root cellar starts when you plan your garden and your orchard. Grow foods that store well in a cellar. Apples, beets, late cabbage, carrots, celery, onions, parsnips, potatoes, sweet potatoes, salsify, turnips, and winter squash can be stored without canning. In a root cellar, the flavor and texture of vegetables change very little, and the foods retain most of their nutritional value. Storing produce in a root cellar preserves more nutritional value than any other type of food preservation. The advantages you have in using a root cellar are the reduced dependence on electricity and less food processing time for you.