Category Archives: Seasonal Food Tips

The Heat Is On

Do you have the heat on in your house to stay warm this time of year? If you do, then make the most of that dry air and dry some herbs at home!

All it really takes to dry most herbs is to expose the leaves or flowers to warm, dry air. Gently flowing air and good ventilation will help pull moisture away from the herbs as it evaporates. If you have an accessible heat vent, then near the vent and moving air may be an excellent location to hang or place herbs to dry them — as long as the plants are not actually touching the vent, in order to prevent a fire hazard. You also want to protect the herbs from dust or contaminants coming out of the vents; see below.

There are two categories to apply to herbs for drying purposes: less tender herbs and tender-leaf herbs.

Less tender herbs include rosemary, sage, thyme, summer savory and parsley. These are easy to dry by simply tying them into small bundles and hanging them.

Drying herbs

Tender-leaf herbs such as basil, oregano, tarragon, lemon balm, and mint contain more moisture, so they need to be dried quickly or else they could mold. Their leaves and seeds may also fall off the stems, so try hanging these herbs in paper bags to so that they are caught before falling to the ground. Tear or punch holes in the side of a bag then secure a small bunch of herbs inside the bag with a rubber band. For the herbs to dry quickly, hang the bag where an air current will pass through it.

Leaves are dry when they are crispy and crumble easily when handled. Dried leaves can be left whole or crumbled. Place the dried herbs in airtight containers and store them in a cool, dry, dark area to protect their color and fragrance.

Remember that dried herbs are about three to four times stronger in flavor than fresh herbs, so if you are substituting dried herbs for fresh herbs in a recipe then use ¼ to 1/3 of the amount listed.

Read Drying Herbs for more information about drying herbs using a dehydrator and an oven.

Illustration of herbs drying in paper bag is from “So Easy to Preserve”, 6th ed. 2014. Bulletin 989, (c) Cooperative Extension Service, The University of Georgia, Athens. Revised by Elizabeth L. Andress. Ph.D. and Judy A. Harrison, Ph.D., Extension Foods Specialists.

Tips for Gifting your Home-Canned Goodies

Giving home-preserved gifts adds a personal touch, but you do take on the added responsibility of vouching for the safety of the foods you give. As tempting as it may be to impress your recipients with a brand new, never-before-tasted canned creation, your first measure of safety is to use tested recommendations from reliable sources. Instead of experimenting with recipes, get creative with the way you package your home-preserved gifts.

If you use an attractive canning jar of a unique size (12 oz., for example) and you can’t find canning recommendations for that size jar, be sure to use the next biggest size jar that does have canning recommendations (so in the example of the 12 oz. jar, follow the process time listed for pint size jars). Otherwise the product might be under-processed and risk spoilage or causing sickness. Also, be aware that there are lovely jars out in the market place that are NOT recommended for canning. Some jars are intended for other uses, and even if they look like canning jars they may not be tempered to withstand the intense heat of canning or temperature changes that occur in taking jars in and out of canners. (These jars might work well to gift beautiful dried fruits, however!) Our canning recommendations are for use with Mason-type home-canning jars and two-piece lid systems.

Decorative labels are available from jar manufacturers and other companies. As you label your precious products, remember to include the creation date, and consider telling your recipient how long the product will stay “good” (usually one year for best quality with most home-canned foods). If you have room, also include the ingredients (especially if the product contains allergens) and storage instructions like “Store in a cool, dry place and refrigerate after opening.”

If you didn’t already do your canning for gift-giving, then here are a few festive ideas using seasonal ingredients:

Spiced Apple Rings, Apple Butter, Sweet Apple Relish

Citrus Marmalade

Chutneys

Cranberry Sauce, Cranberry Marmalade, Cranberry Conserve

Flavored Vinegars

There are also a few popular holiday gifts that are NOT recommended for home-canning. Don’t risk the health of your loved ones — try the alternative suggestions instead:

Herbed Oil Infusions (try Flavored Vinegar instead –you don’t even need to can it!)

Canned Breads (instead, package dry ingredients and make a tag with baking instructions)

Canned Chocolate/Fudge Sauce (make this Freezer Chocolate Fudge Sauce instead)

This entry was inspired by Resources for Home Food Preservation Gifts by Brian A. Nummer. For more canning-related gift ideas, see Looking for a Gift that Keeps Giving? Try a Dehydrator! and Holiday Gifts for the Home Food Preserver .

 

Going Nutty Over Advice for Preserving Nutmeats?

This time of year, you might be eager to find the best way to make your bounty of pecans, almonds, chestnuts, walnuts or peanuts last through the holiday season and beyond. While canning is a go-to for preserving, let’s not forget that some foods don’t fare so well as a canned product. USDA has never had a home canning recommendation for canning a pack of only nut meats, and the NCHFP website only has a recommendation for canning green peanuts from past work at the University of Georgia.

A previously (and no longer) recommended canning process for “canning” dry nutmeats found in So Easy to Preserve from the University of Georgia is no longer included in the new edition of the book. It was actually just a way to create a vacuum-sealed jar and there was no documentation for any microbial sterilization that might have been taking place. Questions about the risk (even if a low risk) of some bacterial growth if condensation of moisture occurred inside the jars from canning in boiling water led to re-consideration of this advice for sealing jars. Compared to when this was first published years ago, now there are other ways to vacuum pack dry, shelled nut meats at home without heating in boiling water.

Nuts tend to store very well by proper drying and storing in air-tight containers in a cool location. Refrigerated (at 32-45°F) nuts will maintain quality for one year and frozen (at 0°F) nuts will maintain quality for 1, 2, or even 3 years depending on the type of nut. See this publication from the University of California for more specific information about harvesting and storing different types of nuts.

While we know of no tested recommendations for canning pecan pie filling, another common request, you can easily make your pecan pies as usual, cool rapidly, and then freeze briefly before packaging for long term freezer storage (pies will be easier to wrap after freezing). Stored at 0°F, frozen pecan pies are expected to last 3-4 months.

Conserves are a delicious way to use up smaller quantities of nuts. By definition, conserves are jam-like products that contain nuts, raisins, and/or coconut. These conserve recipes allow you to choose your preferred nut type: Apple Conserve, Apricot-Orange Conserve, Cranberry Conserve, Damson Plum- Orange Conserve, Grape Conserve, and Plum Conserve.

Are you wondering why it’s ok to can nuts in conserves but not by themselves? The recommendation we withdrew was just one procedure for canning a jar of all nutmeats in a dry pack. There is nothing wrong with canning foods with nuts in them, if tested that way. Other recommendations (like conserves) were developed with a called for amount of nuts along with other ingredients which influence the characteristics of the final product. Let’s consider Apple Conserve, for example: Apples are an acid food and the lemon juice is a strong acid; if other ingredient proportions are kept as expected, the final product should remain acid enough for boiling water canning. Furthermore, in this conserve, the pectin and sugar combine with this acid and fruit to make a gel, which reduces the water activity of the final product. These characteristics make a difference in what the process recommendation should be, and were taken into consideration for that recipe when a canning process was determined.

Preserving Potatoes

potatoes

Not known for their fragility, potatoes are a robust, starchy tuber in the nightshade family (along with fellow Solanaceae family members tomatoes, eggplants, and peppers). Potatoes pack a nutritional punch, weighing in with substantial amounts of potassium, fiber, protein, vitamin C, Vitamin B-6, Magnesium, and a lesser but still notable amount of Iron.

It’s easy enough to store fresh white potatoes for up to 2 months in a cupboard kept at 50-70°F (sweet potatoes last only 2-3 weeks). But what if you want them to last even longer?

Interestingly, storing white potatoes in a refrigerator is likely to diminish their quality and they are expected to last only 1-2 weeks there. Alternatively, you could cook and mash them, stuff them, or scallop them for freezer storage, but again, they will retain best quality only for a few weeks in the freezer.

Drying is an option for making potatoes last longer. Wash, peel, then cut potatoes into 1/4-inch thick shoestring strips, or cut into 1/8-inch thick slices. Steam blanch the prepared pieces for 6-8 minutes or water blanch them for 5-6 minutes. Plan for a drying time of 8-12 hours in a dehydrator and up to twice as long in an oven, depending on circulation. If you dry sweet potatoes and want to rehydrate them for a recipe, combine each cup of dried pieces with 1-1/2 cups water and let them soak for 30 minutes.

As for canning potatoes, our recommendation is to peel potatoes before canning. That style of preparation is how the research was carried out to determine the recommended processing, and in order to know that the peeling does or does not make a difference, research would need to be done with unpeeled potatoes. Different assumptions might be needed in assessing just how many spores of C. botulinum or other bacteria might be present at the start of the process and what amount of heat might be needed to meet standards for the risk of possible survivors. We do not know of research of canning potatoes with peels left on, so we recommend the preparation steps provided with the process recommendation, especially because there is a possibility that the deviation could result in a less safe situation. Also due to safety concerns, it is important to use potatoes that are only 1 to 2 inches in diameter if you are canning them whole.  These are sometimes described as “new” potatoes; the idea is to use less mature, smaller potatoes which tend to be less starchy than older, “grown-up” potatoes.

White potatoes for canning should be the “waxy” or “boiling” kind.  Different types of potatoes have different amounts and types of starches and they react to heating differently.  You want a potato that keeps its shape and texture well after a lot of heating, and not one that falls apart, becomes “fluffy” after cooking, and is better for mashing. Most red-skin potatoes are of lower starch than baking potatoes  and work well for canning. Many white round potatoes with thin skins fall into this category with red-skin potatoes too. Russets are not good for canning but are  good for baking (they have a high starch content).  Yukon Gold may not be the best potatoes for canning.  While they seem good for boiling, they do tend to fall apart when overcooked.  From what we have read, there is a wide variety in the types and amounts of starches in blue potatoes, so not all blues are the same, just like not all white potatoes are the same in these characteristics.

Sweet potatoes can be slightly larger, but medium-sized potatoes should be cut to fit in the jar in uniform-sized pieces. Note that the sweet potato pressure canning process time is significantly longer than for white potatoes.

Sweet potatoes can have a sugar syrup for canning, if you like that style. But otherwise, all potatoes — white or sweet — should have fresh, boiling water prepared to pour over the preheated potatoes.  Do not use the cooking liquid.  That cooking water contains a lot of starch that comes out of the potatoes and the process time was determined using fresh boiling water to cover.  The added starch can create  a safety problem by slowing down heating of the potatoes in the canner, and it also creates a very unappealing pack with possible masses of gelled or congealed starches around the potatoes.  If you have spoilage, this makes it very hard to see the signs of some spoilage.