Sunday, June 13, 2010

food preservation.

This summer, I'm teaching myself to can. 

No, not dancing the can-can, but learning to create my own canned goods in jars.  I've been looking, for a while, ways to preserve and store my own food - meaning, knowing every last ingredient in things (and ingredients that I can pronounce!). 

My first project wasn't canning at all, however.  My friend and work colleague owns a farm and brought me 10 huge heads of broccoli this week.  I wanted to freeze it all in small servings to use throughout the year.  I learned how to blanch, and I really enjoyed it!  Usually, cooking is such a difficult task for me because of my time restraints due to my schedule.  But when I have the time, I'm learning I love the processes of cooking.  It was actually kind of fun. :)

I bought two books on canning as well:





I've already read then and tagged recipes I want to try...including watermelon rind pickles.  Just sounds interesting!  I borrowed my Mom's boiling water bath canner that has been collecting dust since about 1975, and I ordered a new tools set that should be arriving via Amazon.com tomorrow.  My Mom has jars that I can use that have also just been collecting dust since who knows when - probably since before I was born!  So, I'm about good to go! 

Along with the preserving and such, I've ordered a small deep freezer that will be delivered in Tuesday.  This is a purchase that I've been wanting for a long time. 

My small little freezer on my apartment sized fridge just doesn't cut it.  With my busy schedule, I like to cook big batches of things when I have time, then freeze in serving size containers for quick, homemade deliciousness on busy weeknights (or basically every night).  I just hope it fits in the space I have for it the way I want it to...I guess I'll find out on Tuesday!

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