Preserving Garden Produce

Now that we've had a fruitful harvest, it's now time to preserve our food! Here are just a few ideas for preserving your food.

Apple Sauce. Every year, from our own apple trees and friends', we've made apple sauce. I'm sure there are millions of different ways to prepare apple sauce, but this is the way we've done it. Wash, peel, and core the apples, then, in a big stock pot, fill with about an inch of water and the apples. Cook on low for an hour, stirring periodically. Then, mix in mixer. We've always froze our apple sauce, but you can also can it.

Green beans. Since learning to can, I was hoping to can more food this year, but we don't have a pressure cooker, and since green beans are a low acid food, we'd have to can them using one. So, we decided to freeze our green beans. After washing and snapping the beans, get a pot of water boiling on the stove and have another pot or bowl full of ice cold water. Put the snapped green beans in the boiling water, cover with lid, and let them sit for 3 minutes. After that, drain the water, and put the green beans into the cold water for 3 minutes. Make sure the water says ice cold by adding lots of ice! Then bag the beans and be sure to date them!

Peaches. Some good friends of our gave us a whole bunch of peaches. We decided to freeze them instead of can them because this way we can make peach shakes, a favorite! The first time we froze them, we only cut them in half, and quarters are better on the blender.

Sauerkraut. We grew a lot of cabbage in our garden this year, so we decided to make sauerkraut with it! My sister made it last year for the first time. I had always told myself that I didn't like it, but once I tried it, I sure did! There are a couple different variations on making it, but I'll just give you the recipe I used.

3 Tbs and 1 tsp. salt

2 Tbs. Caraway seeds

4 medium heads of cabbage

Grate the cabbage by hand or with a food processor, them mix in the salt. Squeeze, or pound with a meat pounder for a few minutes. Then pack into jars, leaving about 1 inch head space. Put jars in dark space for 3-15 days. I let mine sit for 10 days and it tasted really good!

Have fun in your kitchen!