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Posts Tagged ‘Preserving Food’

Canning Pickles — What not to do!

Posted in cucumbers, Vegetables, tagged , on June 24, 2015| 2 Comments »

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We have had an extremely rainy spring this year and the cucumbers have loved it. The lemon cucumbers are doing especially well. I’ve been pickling like crazy, and unfortunately the cucumbers don’t always ripen at the most convenient time.

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I was in a rush, so rather than wait until the brine had come to a complete boil, I decided that the salt had dissolved, and that was good enough. Bad mistake! Turns out that when the temperature outside of the jars is hotter than the temperature inside of the jars, they break. The jars just started popping, and the bottoms cracked right off. 4 quarts of pickles in the trash.

Luckily, I have been able to make another 8 quarts of lemon cucumber dill pickle wedges, so my daughter is happy and I learned a valuable lesson.

 

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Freezing Carrots

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on April 21, 2015| 2 Comments »

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We’ve been eating carrots for month, from one of the garden beds, but with the weather warming up, I needed the space. This past weekend I planted my second bed of okra so that carrots had to come up.

I filled an entire refrigerator drawer with carrots. I tore off the tops, brushed (not washed) the dirt off and stored them until I had time to freeze, which was last night.

Then I just set up an assembly line …

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Wash, Peel and Slice the carrots. You could also chop or dice.

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Blanch for 2 minutes.

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Ice bath for 2 minutes

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Drain

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Seal in food saver bags. You can use other freezer bags, but I have found veggies really do best with a very tight seal. I managed to get 9 sets of carrots.

I still have about half a drawer full of carrots. I decided to freeze all of the larger ones, and leave the smaller, more tender carrots for eating raw.

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Curing Onions/Garlic

Posted in How-to, tagged , on May 31, 2013| 1 Comment »

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The onion tops were starting to wilt and falling over, so it was time to harvest. I have more onions this year than I’ve ever had and so I decided to try curing, which can extend the life of the onions/garlic for up to 6 months.

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Step 1

Pull the onions and garlic from the beds and lay them out in the sun for 1 day. I made sure to wait until today to give time for the soil to dry out a bit from our rain last weekend.

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Step 2

Braid the onions. I did these in groups of 3-6

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Step 3

Hang the onions in a shady location where they get air circulation. I hung these under the front and back eaves.

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My husband didn’t seem to happy about the string of onions at the front door, but we borderline live in the country, so why not.

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Step 4

Lay out the garlic in a shady location. The garlic can be hung like the onions and vice-versa. Since I had less garlic I chose this option.

I am now supposed to leave these for 2-3 weeks if the temperature is 80. Since we will be at 90-95 it will probably take 1-2 weeks. I’ll update my progress.

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