Posts Tagged: food preservation
Drying peppers
Air drying peppers can be a fun activity to do with children. For the best results, select only firm, fresh peppers free of any blemishes or other damage. Wash them thoroughly. Then use a knife to cut a slit in the stems. Using a large crafting needle, thread light string or a heavy thread through the stems of the peppers. Hang the string of peppers in a well-ventilated room since high humidity can cause the peppers to spoil. The peppers should dry within about four weeks.
Peppers can also be sun dried. Drying peppers in the sun requires a minimum temperature of 90°F for several days, with a humidity level below 60 percent. To sun dry peppers, first rinse them to remove any dirt. Then lay them on screen trays made of stainless steel, plastic, or Teflon coated fiberglass. Do not use galvanized metal, copper or aluminum screens. Place the trays on blocks to increase airflow and cover the peppers with cheesecloth to protect them from birds and insects. Once the peppers are dried, pasteurize them to kill any insect or insect eggs that may have gotten on the peppers. To pasteurize them, either seal them in a freezer bag and place the bag in the freezer (set at 0°F or below) for 48 hours, or lay the peppers out single layer on a tray and place them in the oven pre-heated to 160°F for 30 minutes.
If you have an electric food dehydrator, first thoroughly rinse the peppers and remove the stems and cores. Cut the peppers into 3/8-inch disks and place in a single layer on the dehydrator trays. The peppers generally take 8 to 12 hours to dry in a dehydrator.
You can also dry peppers in your oven, although you may not want to heat up your house using this method in the summer. To dry peppers in your oven, first make sure your oven can be set to 140°F. (Any higher temperature will cook, not dehydrate the peppers.) Place washed peppers single layer on an oven drying tray (note: cake cooling racks placed on a cookie tray work well). Make sure the drying tray clears all sides of the oven three to four inches. If you are placing more than one drying tray in your oven, make sure they're spaced two to three inches apart for air circulation. The oven door needs to be propped open two to six inches during the entire drying process. You can place an oven thermometer near the drying tray to get an accurate temperature reading and adjust the temperature as needed to reach 140°F. Since oven drying takes about twice as long as an electric food dehydrator, it will take approximately 16 to 24 hours to dry peppers using this method. Just be sure to let the peppers completely cool before packaging them for storage.
Dried peppers can be stored for several months in a cool dark place. They should be stored in moisture proof packaging such as a glass jar or freezer container. Plastic freezer bags can be used but be aware that they are not rodent proof. Rehydrate dried peppers for use in dishes like casseroles by soaking them in water. Or you may opt to crumble or turn the dried peppers into a powder to use as a seasoning.
Source of information and more reading:
For more information on drying peppers, see Peppers: Safe Methods to Store, Preserve and Enjoy from the University of California Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources accessible at https://anrcatalog.ucanr.edu/pdf/8004.pdf and Preserving Food: Drying Fruits and Vegetables from the University of Georgia Cooperative Extension Service accessible at https://nchfp.uga.edu/publications/uga/uga_dry_fruit.pdf.
For more information about the UC Master Food Preserver Program, including the Food Preservation Video Library, visit mfp.ucanr.edu.
Home preservation for whole foods, plant-based lifestyles
![Canned garden produce in jars. Canned garden produce in jars.](http://ucanr.edu/blogs/food/blogfiles/73088.png)
Recently there has been increasing interest and desire to grow and preserve our own produce. In addition, there has been an increase of health-conscious families turning to WFPB lifestyles. This UC Davis article explains the differences between vegan and WFPB diets.
Home food preservation is a natural accompaniment to this lifestyle, however, misconceptions about the benefits of home canning are often overlooked for the WFBP lifestyle and therefore not utilized. There is a misconception that preserved canned fruits are loaded with sugar. Unlike vegan diets, WFPB diets do not include sugar, however, WFPB diets do include raw honey if sweeteners are desired. The UC Davis Integrative Medicine article, The real truth about sugar, supports the choice to preserve fruits without the addition of sugar. And, although unprocessed foods are encouraged, minimally processed foods like home preserving, is acceptable. Here is a great article from UC Davis Integrative Medicine - What about processed foods?
Beans are a protein staple for the WFPB lifestyle. A UC Davis Integrative Medicine article explains Why beans are best and are a healthful choice for a meal or a snack. Home canning beans saves time and money. This UCCE video by Dustin Blakey is an excellent demonstration for pressure canning beans. By following the recipe in the book So Easy to Preserve, for pressure canning beans, my beans always come out safe and perfect. Before serving, I bring the beans to a boil for 10 minutes and season for my desired taste.
Being a certified UC Master Gardener provided me the skills and knowledge to successfully grow my own produce. I often referr to my garden as “My Victory Garden for Health.” All the produce that is not eaten fresh is either canned, dehydrated or frozen using skills I learned as a UC Master Food Preserver.
We grew a large 4' x 16' bed of onions. Some onions were dehydrated, which was a great advantage. Snap peas, bush beans, asparagus, beets for pickling, carrots, tomatoes, and sweet corn were either pressure canned, blanched or frozen. Vegetable soup was made and canned using the So Easy to Preserve instructions.
I am not advocating that this lifestyle is for everyone since after almost one year I found my way to a hybrid form of WFPB. However, I will continue to use my UC Master Food Preserver skills to home preserve produce that is sugar free and healthy, knowing that my home preserved food is safe since I have followed recipes and procedures tested for home food preservation.
For more information about the UC Master Food Preserver Program, including the Food Preservation Video Library, visit mfp.ucanr.edu.
Reliable home food preservation videos now available on new website
Americans' interest in traditional homemaking activities – gardening, cooking, baking bread and canning – has risen dramatically over the last few months, according to Google Trends.
Getting reliable information is particularly important when it comes to home food preservation. But internet search results don't always display research-based information at the top. Using the wrong procedure won't qualify as a hilarious Pinterest Fail; it can be fatal.
To make reliable home food preservation how-to videos easy to find, a team of UC Cooperative Extension professionals and volunteers reviewed and aggregated research-based food preservation videos produced by Cooperative Extension programs across the nation on one website – http://ucanr.edu/MFPvideolibrary.
“As far as we can tell, this site is the only website with a full collection of food safety and food preservation videos from the Cooperative Extension system,” said UCCE Master Food Preserver coordinator Sue Mosbacher. In partnership with states, counties and universities, the USDA's Cooperative Extension system provides higher education to farmers, ranchers, communities, youth and families. In California, UC Cooperative Extension is part of UC Agriculture and Natural Resources.
The videos are divided into 10 categories: food safety, food preservation methods, jam & jelly, pickle & ferment, dehydrate, refrigerate & freeze, can fruit, can tomatoes, can vegetables and preserve meat & fish.
The UC Cooperative Extension Master Food Preserver Program trains and certifies volunteers to teach the public about food preservation techniques and safety. Certified UC Master Food Preservers typically hold community classes to extend the information. During the COVID-19 crisis, in-person classes have been canceled, so video-based learning is critical to educating families who are interested in the craft.
Dustin Blakey, director of UC Cooperative Extension in Inyo and Mono counties and coordinator of the local Master Food Preserver volunteers, created one of the videos in the collection. In seven minutes, Blakey outlines the process of preserving dry beans. (View the video below.)
“Right now, with people losing their jobs, if you have a pressure canner, you can buy a five-pound bag of beans for $5 and make 16 cans of beans,” Blakey said. “If you have the equipment and jars, it's a great way to preserve the food and then this summer, you have it ready to go.”
Blakey said he and his team will be producing more home food preservation videos in the future.
Prepare Dinner--Freeze It--Have Dinner!
![frozen frozen](http://ucanr.edu/blogs/sbmfp/blogfiles/53724.png)
If you are really rambunctious try this for your future enjoyable easy eats: freeze small batches of lasagne, leftover pork ribs (these re-heat in the oven most excellently), turkey and fixin's (remember Thanksgiving?) and casseroles--or leftovers in general. Freezing leftover red sauce for pasta is a gift from heaven when tired or sick. You can cook extra chicken when grilling so that it can be defrosted in the refrigerator and you'll have a ready source of sandwich makings or salad add-ins (or casseroles for that matter). There is also the satisfaction of having something at hand to put in the oven on a night when you don't feel like preparing stuff for dinner!
To keep your frozen food safe you must follow good freezing practices. Excellent general advice on such is to be found here: freezing at the NCHFP
If you want to freeze prepared foods, like the lasagne I mentioned above or casseroles try the NCHFP's Freezing Casseroles, Soups and Stews. This is the ultimate in convenience food: your good cooking in your freezer!
For a good booklet (you might want to print up) about freezing all sorts of prepared foods try Preserving Food: Freezing Prepared Foods. You will need a .pdf reader. The foods it covers range from biscuits to whipped cream, and it has a good list of foods that do not freeze well. This is a good and valuable reference to have around the house.
Preserving by freezing requires some organization, just like preserving by canning, but if you can jar fruits and veggies to process, you may certainly freeze other, un-jar-able items as well. As mentioned above, they can be the most convenient foods--sometimes it is nice to be able to throw something in the oven for dinner and not even need to crack open some jars to do so.
![frozen flip vertical frozen flip vertical](http://ucanr.edu/blogs/sbmfp/blogfiles/53725.png)
Freeze the Bounty of Summer Fruit
This summer remember that fruits are easy to freeze. Many you don't need to blanch or do much to other than wash, dry and perhaps add sugar to (for the best product). Local small berries, if you grow them, are probably past picking, but they are still available in markets. If you can drive up to the mountains or further north, picking both wild and farmed berries should be going on
Summer berries, especially those you pick yourself, or grow yourself, are so much better than those usually sold in stores. If you go somewhere to pick, you are in control of how ripe those berries are. If you plan well you can pick in the morning and have those berries in the freezer or in a jar that evening. Preserving doesn't get much more immediate than than--unless you get the fruit from your own backyard or from a neighbor.
Small berries such as blackberries or blueberries can be washed, dried, placed in a single layer in a flat pan and individually frozen dry or with a little sugar. Place them in freezer containers or freezer bags and you can pour out whatever you need when you need it.
And one last "for instance": don't forget pineapple. Pineapple on sale can be very sweet and cost-effective to freeze. Freezing pineapple is fast too--no sugar needed, just wash, peel, cut it up and freeze. Of course you can jar it up yourself.
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