One reason I love cooking, is it’s creative, which is particularly important when you buy produce in bulk. In my blog post, “What Should I Do With All This Produce?” I lay out some creative options for using bulk produce, and I need to update to add the option of fruit syrups. What brings me great joy is making something delicious out of scraps, which would typically be thrown out.
I recently canned meatballs in homemade sauce as an experiment, but wasn’t sure what to expect. I canned in quarts, which means 90 minutes in the canner, so I was afraid they would be very soft and fall apart. I waited a week before opening – I almost held my breath as I waited for the moment of truth. I poured the jar into the bowl – it looked great. But what about texture?
I’m sure your first question is, why would anyone need to dehydrate frozen vegetables? What’s wrong with keeping them in the freezer? The answer is, a homemaking prepper does both.
Dehyrating frozen vegetables saves freezer space, and just space in general. This quart jar is 2.5 pounds of frozen vegetables in dehydrated form.
Canning is great fun, especially when experimenting with different recipes and flavor combinations. We just canned up some chicken, and I did some test jars of smokey, taco, bbq, Southwestern, and curry chicken. Here are the jars I prepared before filling with chicken.
Having a well-balanced long term, shelf-stable storage inventory is important. We eat a ton of cheese in my house, so I decided to try my hand at waxing cheese for a shelf-stable pantry option. I’m experimenting, hoping for the same positive results as others.
