Eat Your Yard
Page 13
Canning
Canning is old fashioned, and there’s a reason the practice endures through generations. You can prepare and put up the entire harvest of a crop at one time, and once you’re done in the kitchen you can enjoy the rewards all year—or for years—with no fuss and no storage cost. A bumper crop one year can balance out a bad harvest the next if you’ve got enough cans in the pantry.
Use canning for all kinds of products in addition to jams, jellies, and other fruit preserves: juices and syrups, whole or sauced fruit, and even pickled grape leaves.
Preserving food by canning shouldn’t be a mystery, although some people are needlessly frightened of food poisoning. Dangerous botulism microorganisms can only grow in an airless low-acid environment—vegetables, mostly—but all the high-acid fruits and any foods pickled in acidic brine are safe if correctly processed.
Still, canning is all about sanitation and creating a sterile environment that prevents the growth of any other bacterium, mold, or yeast. And that means learning to wash and sterilize every jar, lid, and cooking implement you handle. Follow cooking and processing instructions carefully, being sure to check for applicable high-altitude adjustments to cooking time.
Canning requires some investment in equipment, including kettles for cooking and for the boiling-water processing bath; strainers, sieves, wide-mouth funnels, and cheesecloth; measuring cups and a food scale; and canning-size tongs. Then you have them forever. Heat-tempered canning jars come in sizes from a half cup to a half gallon, and these are reusable. Bands and lids should be replaced.
Use only ripe, unblemished produce for canning, and pick through and rinse it carefully to remove stems, bugs, dust, and so on (a few fruit recipes call for stems left on for pectin content).
In general, making preserves involves cooking fruit to soften the pulp and extract juice, and then adding sugar and cooking again to the jelling point. The jars are filled, sealed, and submerged in boiling water to kill germs and create a vacuum seal.
If the idea of using a lot of sugar is offensive, canning may not be for you. Sugar not only enhances flavor, but it is important in creating the “jell” in jelly and other preserves, and it is part of the preservative process too. There are no-sugar and reduced-sugar recipes, but results vary.
For easy beginners’ canning recipes, see Nan’s Blueberry Jam, Crabapple Jelly, and Rose Water Plum Compote.
Harvest time may last for months as edible landscape gardeners develop their skills. Orchard fruits, berries, even herbs go into the larder. Photo by www.rebeccadangelophotography.com.
Pressing and Fermentation
Making cider or fruit juice from orchard crops like apples, pears, and grapes is a delight: family or neighborhood groups can make a celebration of pressing fruit, since it takes many hands and many hours and produces large quantities of finished product. Perfect for sharing!
Cider can be refrigerated and consumed fresh, or pasteurized (heated briefly to a high temperature, but well below boiling) and then canned, or left unpasteurized to ferment. The same applies to grapes, which, incidentally, make a good mixer with other homemade fruit juices.
Making fresh fruit juices does not require a juicer. Just extract the juice by pressing or cutting fruit into pieces and cooking, just as for jams and jellies; let the liquid drip through a sieve and cheesecloth the same way. Omit the step of adding sugar and cooking to the jelling point. The heated—pasteurized—juice is then ready to can and seal in a hot water bath. Try mixing whatever is ripe at the same time into a single batch: grapes and pears, for instance, or crabapples and quince.
Cider making consists of two processes that are linked together in one mechanism: grinding the ripe fruit into chunks, and then squeezing batches of the chipped fruit (or whole fruit, in the case of grapes) with a screw press that fits into a loose wooden “basket.” The juice runs freely into bowls or buckets below and can be further strained before processing. Never use stone fruits like peaches or cherries in a cider press, as they can ruin the grinder blades.
A cider press is a major investment, but with care it will last for many years. Simple fruit grinders begin at about $150, and grinder-press combinations range from about $600 to nearly $1,500; the most expensive have electric motors, but these can produce hundreds of gallons of fruit juice or cider in a day, rather than dozens of gallons with a hand-operated press.
Winemaking combines the sanitation requirements of canning with the temperature and handling practices of breadmaking. Once you get the hang of it, making wine is as simple as following any recipe. Wine uses almost no energy to produce, and it costs very little in supplies. Homemade wine makes a lovely gift and, of course, a delightful accompaniment to meals at home. There’s a one-time investment in equipment—complete kits cost under $200—or you may be able to share with other amateur winemakers locally.
Put aside visions of syrupy, too-sweet fruit wines. There’s a world of delicate, delicious wines from all corners of the edible landscape; herbs and wildflowers, vine and nut leaves, and unusual fruits like quince, pomegranate, and lemon all can produce excellent wine. Apples and pears are famous as hard cider and “perry” wine. Now consider rose hip wine, sage wine, grape leaf wine, or almond wine. To your health!
The principle of winemaking is this: living yeast cells interact with sugar, converting it to alcohol. Sugar-laden fruits often have enough sugar for fermentation on their own, but low-sugar plants like herbs and wildflowers need sugar or honey added (wine sweetened with honey is called mead). Likewise, yeast occurs naturally in many fruits, but most often a small batch of activated yeast is added to the mix to kick-start the reaction and crowd out competing microorganisms. A packet of bread yeast will do.
Winemaking begins with standard proportions—gleaned from millennia of human experience—of water or juice, flavoring (fruit or other edible plant), sweetener, and yeast. The mixture must begin at a lukewarm temperature, just like bread, and then it is left undisturbed in a warm, dark place. The wine is “cooking,” a process that may take several months as gas bubbles continue percolating.
When the yeast has digested enough sugar, it dies off and fermentation ends. The wine now clarifies as if by magic and can be bottled, aged, and enjoyed.
Winemaking can take care of any real surplus from the garden. One recipe calls for forty to fifty pounds of peaches, easily attainable with just a few healthy trees.
Are there disadvantages to winemaking? I can’t think of one.
Photo by Nan K. Chase.
Resources
Internet resources for plant information seem limitless, sometimes overwhelming; evaluate Web resources with a rating feature like The Garden Watchdog on www.davesgarden.com.
One reliable place to start for detailed localized information—state by state and county by county—is the United States Department of Agriculture’s Cooperative Extension System: www.csrees.usda.gov/Extension/. The Master Gardener program is listed there as well.
For help getting started with canning, drying, freezing, and other ways to preserve the harvest, visit the National Center for Home Food Preservation, www.uga.edu/nchfp/. The Wisconsin-based company NESCO/American Harvest is a good source for easy-to-operate electric dehydrators, www.nesco.com, and there are detailed instructions on drying food at www.aces.uiuc.edu/vista/html_pubs/drying/dryfood.html. Oliso makes a compact vacuum sealer called a Frisper with reusable plastic storage bags, www.oliso.com.
For product information about cider presses and related equipment, see Correll Cider Presses, www.correllciderpresses.com, or Happy Valley Ranch, www.happyvalleyranch.com.
Hard-copy and Internet garden catalogues supply detailed information about edible plant selection and care. Consult sources like One Green World, www.onegreenworld.com; Millers Nurseries, www.millernurseries.com; the Home Orchard Society, www.homeorchardsociety.org; California Rare Fruit Growers, Inc., www.crfg.org; the Herb Society of America, www.herbsociety.org; American Pomological Society, www.americanp
omological.org; and other garden organizations.
For environmentally low-impact pest control solutions see Gardens Alive!, www.gardensalive.com.
Shop at used bookstores for timeless advice on all garden topics, including “putting up” the harvest in various ways.
Consider joining a local garden club for education about local plants of value in the edible landscape, and for companionship while learning; see www.gcamerica.org.
Below is a list of Web sites offering recipes, nutritional information, and much more.
When all is said and done, experience by trial and error is the best teacher.
Photo by Robin Siktberg of the Herb Society of America.
Favorite Fruits
Apple
U.S. Apple Association, www.usapple.org
Apple Products Research & Education Council, www.appleproducts.org
Michigan Apples, www.michiganapples.com
Cherry
National Cherry Growers & Industries Foundation, www.nationalcherries.com
Northwest Cherries, www.nwcherries.com
Peach
California Tree Fruit Agreement, www.eatcaliforniafruit.com
Georgia Peach Commission, www.gapeaches.org
Pear
Pear Bureau Northwest, www.usapears.com
Plum
California Tree Fruit Agreement, www.eatcaliforniafruit.com
California Dried Plums, www.californiadriedplums.org
101 Cookbooks, www.101cookbooks.com
Quince
A Wee Bit of Cooking: A Scottish Food Blog, www.teach77.wordpress.com
Photo courtesy of U.S. Apple Association.
Nuts & Berries
General, including chestnut, hazelnut/filbert, pecan, walnut (and butternut)
Northern Nut Growers Association, Inc., www.icserv.com/nnga/
Almond
Almond Board of California, www.almondsarein.com
Blueberry
U.S. Highbush Blueberry Council, www.blueberrycouncil.com
Chestnut
The American Chestnut Foundation, www.acf.org
Hazelnut/filbert
The Hazelnut Council, www.hazelnutcouncil.org
Pecan
National Pecan Shellers Association, www.ilovepecans.org
Georgia Pecan Commission, www.georgiapecansfit.org
Walnut
California Walnuts, www.walnuts.org
The Walnut Council, www.walnutcouncil.org
Herbs & Vines
General, including bay tree, nasturtium, lavender, mint, rosemary, thyme, and sage
The Herb Society of America, searching individual herb names, www.herbsociety.org
Grape
California Table Grape Commission, www.tablegrape.com
California Raisins, www.raisins.org
North Carolina Muscadine Grape Association, www.ncmuscadine.org
Kiwi
California Kiwifruit Commission, www.kiwifruit.org
ZESPRI™ Kiwifruit, www.zespri.com
California Rare Fruit Growers, Inc., www.crfg.org
Lavender
Mountain Farm, with recipes under Lavender Products section, www.mountainfarm.net
Mountainside Lavender Farm, www.mountainsidelavender.com
Nasturtium
Sunrise Seeds, www.sunriseseeds.com
Hot-Country Choices
General, including fig, olive, pomegranate
California Rare Fruit Growers, Inc., www.crfg.org
Fig
California Fresh Fig Growers Association, www.calfreshfigs.com
Kumquat
Kumquat Growers, Inc., www.kumquatgrowers.com
Lemon, Lime, Orange
Florida Citrus, www.floridajuice.com
Olive
Publication #8267, University of California, Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources, www.anrcatalog.ucdavis.edu
The Olive Oil Source, www.oliveoilsource.com
Photo © iStockPhoto/Paul Giamatti.
Wildflowers
General, including pawpaw and persimmon
California Rare Fruit Growers, Inc., www.crfg.org
American Meadows, www.americanmeadows.com
Pawpaw
Kentucky State University Pawpaw Information website, www.pawpaw.kysu.edu
Peterson Pawpaws, www.petersonpawpaws.com
Northern Nut Growers Association, Inc., www.icserv.com/nnga
Persimmon
Northern Nut Growers Association, Inc., www.icserv.com/nnga
prickly pear, Yucca
Small Farm Center, University of California, Davis, www.sfc.ucdavis.edu
Rose
American Rose Society, www.ars.org
David Austin Roses, www.davidaustinroses.com
Sunflower
National Sunflower Association, www.sunflowernsa.com
Wrapped in ice, a rose hip stays fresh out of doors. The surprising beauty of wild roses extends beyond the usual growing season. ©Peter Jordt/subrosa.dk.
Photo by Nan K. Chase.
Metric Conversion Chart
Table 8.1. Metric Conversion Chart
Volume Measurements Weight Measurements Temperature Conversion
U.S. Metric U.S. Metric U.S. Metric
1 teaspoon 5 ml 1/2 ounce 15 g 250 120
1 tablespoon 15 ml 1 ounce 30 g 300 150
1/4 cup 60 ml 3 ounces 90 g 325 160
1/3 cup 75 ml 4 ounces 115 g 350 180
1/2 cup 125 ml 8 ounces 225 g 375 190
2/3 cup 150 ml 12 ounces 350 g 400 200
3/4 cup 175 ml 1 pound 450 g 425 220
1 cup 250 ml 2-1/4 pounds 1 kg 450 230