Homestead Acres

Posts Tagged ‘food preserving’

Recently a dear friend asked me if I would like a dehydrator she was no longer using.  I was just so excited!  I’ve been canning for over 15 years and I would never give that up.   However dehydrating has many benefits.  It saves a LOT of space and properly stored many items can last up to 30 years.    Standard guidelines on canned goods are 1 year, although myself and many canners have used them well past that and they were just fine.

My main interest in dehydrating is time savings, space savings and long term storage.

This is the dehydrator I have except that mine has 4 trays.  I love it, enough that I will be getting a larger  Excalibur
one ASAP.

Below is what I’ve been dehydrating in the past week.  The bag of corn was a 1kg (2.2 lb) frozen bag, it now fits in just 1 medium zip lock bag!  Each bag of peppers had taken up 4 medium zip lock bags before dehydrating.  We bought lots on a case sale last summer, diced and froze them. The bottom right are blueberries.  Last week a local store had 600 g tubs of frozen wild organic blueberry’s on sale.   Now these will be easy to add to yogurt or baked goodies!  On the bottom left are banana chips, or what is left at them.   lol  The kids just love them!

I enjoy canning our own conveniences food.  Store bought soups are expensive and high in salt and other additives.  I love having  home cooked suppers on our pantry shelves.  Lets face it we ALL have crazy days that we are tempted to pick up fast food.  I try to keep a stock of home canned food available for times I’m just to tired or sick to cook supper.

How to can beef soup

• Place soup bones in a roasting pan and roast at 350F for 1 hour.  This doesn’t have to be an exact time, just until they are nicely browned.
• Remove bones from pan and place in a stock pot.  Cover with water and add chopped onions, celery ends, what ever you have on hand.  Bring to a boil.  Turn down and simmer until broth has cooked down into a nice dark rich tasting liquid.
• Strain the broth and place in the fridge to cool over night.
• The next day skim off the fat and reheat broth.  Season to taste.
• Peel and dice potatoes and carrots.  I use approximately half a cup per quart jar.
• Add vegetables to jars then add desired amount of meat.
• Cover with hot stock.  Run a spatula around the sides to remove any air bubbles.
• Wipe rims,  add lids and rings finger tight.
• Can at 10 pounds pressure for 90 minutes quarts, 75 minutes for pints.

I’m canning the peas we picked from the garden.  This is so easy to do!

You will need:
Peas
water
salt

Step 1. Shell your peas.
Step 2. Fill your jars with peas leaving 1 inch of head space.
Step 3. Add 1/2 tsp of salt per pint jar/ 1 tsp of salt per quart jar (optinal)
Step 4. Cover peas with hot/boiling water.
Step 5. Wipe rims and put lids on.
Step 6. Place in the canner and put canner lid on.
Step 7. Turn heat up high and let steam vent out of the canner for 10 min.
Step 8. Place weight on canner. Once weight starts jiggling adjust heat to get a slow, steady rocking. Set timer for 40 minutes for pints or quarts.
Step 9. After timer goes off turn of the heat, let canner vent. Once all pressure has been released wait an additional 20 min. Then remove weight and lid. Place jars on a towel to cool, let sit for 24 hours.

I didn’t have time to get into the fine details. But I wanted to give an overview of what has been on my mind.