This past weekend was pretty much dedicated to canning. Homebrew Husband and I did this last year (see: Can-o-Rama 2012). Dedicating a solid weekend to putting up staple foods like pickles and tomatoes can be a bit of a whirlwind, but it feels fantastic to take the pantry from nearly-bare to nearly-full in 48 hours….
Food Preservation
How Not To Die From Botulism: What Home Canners Need To Know About The World's Most Deadly Toxin
You may have seen this article. A Seattle man recently contracted botulism from his improperly canned elk meat and is lucky to be alive. His description of how he canned the elk is like a checklist for everything you never, ever do when canning food. I love to see so many new people taking up home…
Turmeric Garlic Dill Pickles by Popular Request
I have gotten a lot of requests for the recipe for my new favorite Turmeric Garlic Dill Pickles since mentioning them in my Can-o-rama post. Ask and ye shall receive, friends. Turmeric Garlic Dill Pickles 8 lbs small pickling cucumbers Pre-Soak: 3/4 cups pickling salt 2 gallons cold water. Brine:* 8 large cloves garlic (or…
How To Make Jerky At Home with Venison or Elk
Some urban homesteading families have the inclination and skill to go beyond gleaning and gathering and put their meat on the table – literally – through hunting and fishing. Anisa Schell’s family is one, and today I am thrilled to share her recipe for Wild Game Jerky. Anisa blogs at Lazy Homesteader and gets dirt under her…
Stop Throwing Away Free Tomato Sauce
It has come to my attention that many people are unwittingly throwing away free tomato sauce when they preserve their summer tomatoes. Here’s the thing: like all fruit, the skin of tomato is where much of the natural pectin resides. Pectin is the starch that gives jams their thickness and good tomato sauce its natural,…
How To Martha-Up Your Jam Labels For Nearly Free In About 5 Minutes
The pile of canned tomatoes and pickles and jams on my dining room table is begging to be put safely away in the pantry. The only problem: I like to Martha-up my jam with cute labels. Although I have, in the past, recommended inexpensive cut-out labels for jam jars, many readers have enlightened me to…
Can-o-Rama 2012
It’s 1:43 AM Monday as I write this. The past 56 hours have been a Can-o-rama from “where’s-my-coffee?” to way-past-dusk that has precluded the writing of any witty or useful blog posts. I’m eating good cheese with a spoon, too tired even to drink the well-deserved pour of wine next to me. I got nothin’,…
How To Make Pectin-Free Jam: Ditch The Box and Increase The Creativity In Your Preserves
Do you need pectin to make jam? I used to think so. I followed the recipe on the inside of the pectin box slavishly for 7 years before I broke free of the pectin bonds. Every year, my strawberry jam tasted exactly like the strawberry jam of everyone else who wore the Sure-Jell shackles. The…
Create Your Own Signature Jam By Mixing and Matching Flavors
It’s unofficial Preserve Week here at Northwest Edible Life. I know because my floor is sticky with canning syrup and my refrigerator smells like pickle brine. It’s hard for me to think of anything else but putting food by right now, so I’m going to be talking jams and pickles all week long. I hope…
How To Turn A Mason Jar Into A Fermenting Crock
You can spend a lot of money on specialized pickling crocks. Go ahead, be my guest. You’ll learn all about how your $25-$200 is buying you an ideal anaerobic environment in which to nurture your precious anaerobic bacteria…blah, blah, blah. Me? I don’t need another unitasker in my kitchen. I like to be able to use a…
Lacto-fermented Cherry Salsa
It’s been cherry-palooza around here. I’ve dried, frozen, canned in lime-almond syrup (fabulous, by the way), given away and eaten (and eaten and eaten and eaten) fresh cherries by the pound. We’ve even got my 2 year old saying “cherries make ya poop a lot!” which seems far more adorable when it’s coming out of…
Buying An All American 30 Quart Pressure Canner: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly
If you are part of the NW Edible community on Facebook, then you may already know about the pressure canner that brought me to tears. I had some birthday money, you see. Visions of pantry-ready, home-canned stock danced in my head. And so, after some research, I look the plunge into pressure canners. It was a…