Preserving Your Harvest

[Sueby]

I made some freezer pickles. Who even knew that was a thing? But I have SO many cucumbers I thought I'd give it a try. I will thaw a jar in a week or so & see.

This is sort of the recipe I used, I don't like sweet pickles so I left out the sugar & added tons of dill, but I followed the directions on letting them drain & all that.

https://www.thechunkychef.com/homemade-freezer-pickles/comment-page-2/#comments

 

[Sally PB]

That link had a link to a garlic dill refrigerator pickle recipe that the author thought would work for freezer pickles. I bookmarked that recipe; I might try it with cucamelons in a few weeks.

 

[Sueby]

I didn't see that!

 

[tripletfeb]

Today I canned 9 pints of green beans. Yesterday I blanched, cut off the cob, and froze three dozen ears of corn

 

[MROO]

My Bestie is currently canning brandied peaches. I can't WAIT 'til Testing Day!

 

[Friendofchix]

I recently saw on a YouTube channel called Country View Acres they had gotten a machine that freeze dries foods so they can be stored at room temp in jars (they also showed a jar vacuum sealer). It was trial and error as to what turned out well but you could google that idea or maybe others here have done it. They also dried herbs on racks and then vacuum sealed them in jars. I tried using a vacuum sealer (like foodsaver) for green beans (seals in plastic). I put freshly picked and snapped but not cooked green beans in there and froze. They weren’t in there long term, maybe two months, but they were as good as the blanched ones.

 

[Sally PB]

There is a thread about freeze drying here:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/freeze-drying-digest.1626407/

 

[saysfaa]

I recently saw on a YouTube channel called Country View Acres they had gotten a machine that freeze dries foods so they can be stored at room temp in jars (they also showed a jar vacuum sealer). It was trial and error as to what turned out well but you could google that idea or maybe others here have done it. They also dried herbs on racks and then vacuum sealed them in jars. I tried using a vacuum sealer (like foodsaver) for green beans (seals in plastic). I put freshly picked and snapped but not cooked green beans in there and froze. They weren’t in there long term, maybe two months, but they were as good as the blanched ones.

I think they were good because they weren't in the freezer long rather than because they were vacuum sealed. The quality issues with frozen raw green beans are because the enzymes aren't deactivated. It takes a lot longer at such low temperatures but the enzymes processes still happen.

I tried the food saver system last year. I like it but the bags are soooo expensive. I now have the mason jar vacuum lid setup. I haven't tried it yet though. I want to use for dry food (dried cherries, bulk mineral salt, and such). I may still use the food saver for meat.

 

[Smokerbill]

I found a great deal on 10 cent an ear fresh sweet corn so I bought 18, cleaned them up and put them in the freezer. I hope not blanching them isn't too much of a problem.



And my latest batch of sauerkraut made from some garden cabbage has been the most trouble free ferment so far. Nice and clean with no weird stuff growing, no floating pieces of cabbage coming up to the surface. I'll chop the cabbage into thicker 1/4" slices from now on.

I started it July 17th, so it's just about ready to jar and put in the fridge. Three weeks of fermentation at ~69°F seems about right for my tastes.

 

[tripletfeb]

Picked, snapped, cleaned, and canned 8 more pints of green beans yesterday. Had room in the canner on the last batch so threw in 2 pints of water to can