- Author: Cynthia Kintigh
One of the great "lost" arts making a comeback is home food preservation. Call it a return to basics, the influence of the slow food movement, or an offshoot of a renewed interest in home gardening - canning is back!
Making jam, preserves, or jelly using the waterbath method is one of the easiest ways to make an entry into canning. Several years ago I started a jam contest in my office as a covert way to get rid of my proliferation of Elephant Heart plums. At first, my co-workers were reluctant to join in the fray, until I told them, "You know that saying 'Easy as pie'? That's a lie. Pie is hard. Jam is easy." And easy it is.
If you're ready to try your hand at preserving, the University of California and...
- Author: Brenda Dawson
I brought my camera with me to a Master Food Preservers class Saturday at UC Cooperative Extension Sacramento County on pressure canning. In case you’ve been thinking about participating in a Master Food Preservers class, here’s a peek inside the Sacramento demonstration kitchen:
“Cooking is a whole different ball game from canning — a whole different science,” Prendergast said. He's been a UC Master Food Preserver since 1995, and regularly teaches the monthly Saturday morning classes in Sacramento county. Next month's Saturday morning class will...
- Author: Brenda Roche
This time of year, many food preservation enthusiasts are hard at work in their kitchens canning, freezing, drying and fermenting. They are scouring their recipe books (USDA approved, of course!) for interesting and delicious ways to take fruits and vegetables at the peak of their freshness and preserve them so they may be enjoyed year-round. For the home food preserver, this hard work will pay off for months to come, and lucky family members and friends will delight in the delicious gifts that are sure to come their way.
When we think of preserved food, however, we often conjure up thoughts of sticky, sweet jams and jellies and salty pickles and sauerkraut. The treats from the kitchen of a home food preserver are tasty, but...
- Author: Cynthia Kintigh
When we first moved to California our rental house came with a prolific lemon tree. New to a climate where citrus could be grown, we thought this was the greatest thing ever -- lemons right outside our door during the rainy gloom of winter. When dinner and party invitations started coming in, we started arriving with lemons as gifts. But when our hosts invariably greeted our lemony bounty with clenched smiles and "Great! Lemons!" we were perplexed. Only later did we realize that practically everyone has lemons.
I recently told this story to someone at a party and they replied - "Of course, lemons are the zucchini of winter! Everyone has more than they know what to do with."
So what do you do with an abundance of...
- Author: Pamela Kan-Rice
Whether to save money or to dine on fresher products, more Californians have been buying locally grown food and growing their own lately. They also have started home canning what they can’t eat right away. But be aware that if you put them up incorrectly, those garden goodies can be deadly.
I’m no domestic goddess so I learned a lot about home canning recently while watching Susan Algert, UC Cooperative Extension nutrition advisor for Santa Clara County, make a 2-minute video describing safe canning tips.
Meats, vegetables and any food containing meats and vegetables -- such as salsa or...
