Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Preserving Summer's Bounty

I've had the past month off of school and had wanted to do a lot of sewing during this "break", but I've found myself working on other projects instead. Earlier this summer I picked local strawberries and made homemade jam. It was my first time canning as an adult and I couldn't get any of my jars to seal. I purchased canning supplies also hoping to make some pickles as well. However my interest, and LeMont would say obsession, has gone beyond strawberry jam and pickles to many other canning projects. I love the idea of eating something I've preserved myself. Equally important to me is knowing when my food came from, especially in our current food system. The egg recall has only increased my desire for healthy, local food. Plus its great to know that  by using reusable canning jars it also limits the amount of resources I'm using.

Over the past month I've made dried peaches, peach jam, kiwi jam, dried kiwis (very sour, I may not keep them), dried blueberries, pickled green beans, pickles, cucumber relish, spicy pickled carrots, blueberry lemon jam, blueberry lime jam, and blueberry meyer lemon marmalade. I've filled up a whole shelf in my pantry with preserved goods.
Here's a few pictures of what I've been doing.



I would love to hear what you've been working on lately.

Thanks for stopping by,
Tonya

5 comments:

  1. these look wonderful! you've been a busy bee. how did you dry everything? do you have a dehydrator?

    i made "freezer burritos" on sunday so alex would have lunch all week! that made me pretty proud :)

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  2. I recently bought a dehydrator, which has been great. I've found it's not only good for fruit, but I've also made my own croutons and bread crumbs with leftover bread.

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  3. so beautiful - and delicious, I'm sure! Wow, you've reallly been on a roll lately; I had so many posts of yours to catch up on! Love those garage sale scores (especially the wool samples for pillow covers, those are SO awesome!!) and all the thrifting you've been doing to source raw materials - very inspiring, keep it up!!

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  4. Looks like you've got a lot of good stuff going! Those yellow dilly beans look lovely. Are the cucumber pickles fermented?

    I've been busy this summer, too, with lots of strawberry and raspberry jams, peach jam, and pickles. I'm ready for things to start slowing down a little bit, and I'm looking forward to making lots of applesauce this fall.

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  5. This was my first time making pickles so I didn't ferment them. I think I probably will try that next summer.

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