Easy & Fast Preservation Methods

Hey, Pioneers, welcome to episode number 437. Today's podcast, we are going to be talking about fast and easy ways to preserve food at home. I adore canning. It is really the first way that I learned how to preserve food and what I relied on to preserve a good portion of our harvest for a lot of years. And it's kind of funny because, really, canning is truly probably the most complicated when it comes to food safety rules and a lot of your time, hands on time, as well as your presence because you really shouldn't be running your pressure canner while you're outside or away from the house, unlike some of these other forms of food preservation that we're going to be talking about today.

So I kind of like and I feel like I came into my food preservation journey. If you've ever heard where ... If you learn how to drive a manual or a stick shift first, then you'll be able to drive really any type of other vehicle because it's really, if you can drive a stick shift or a manual, it's super easy to drive an automatic. Now, one can definitely learn how to drive a manual or stick shift after one has learned on an automatic, but I think it is a little bit harder, and I did learn how to drive a stick shift first, so there's that. So I kind of feel like I came to my food preservation that way as well, but now, it's really been decades since I've used all the different forms of food preservation.

If you have my book, Everything Worth Preserving, then you know all about them. So I thought I would share the ones that I rely on now when I don't have a lot of time and I really just need it to be fast and easy because I know a lot of us ... It's funny, a lot of times, we think of summer as like, "Oh, it's kind of a time to chill, sit back, relax," and that can be true for some degree, but I feel for most gardeners, homesteaders, and farmers, summertime is one of our busiest times. We have calves being born, we're doing ... We're not feeding this time of year like we do hay in the wintertime, but we're doing our pasture rotation.

This is when we're doing a lot of the updates and infrastructure, and when new fences go in, just because it's a lot nicer outside and it tends to be when we're getting a lot of this stuff done, so I feel like our summers are oftentimes busier than any of the other seasons of the year. So I, myself am really relying on fast and easy, so I thought, "You know what? I think this would be a really good podcast episode." So one of the, probably easiest, most universal forms, and that's because almost every home has one, is to just use your freezer to your best advantage. So when I've got berries coming in, or tomatoes coming in, or anything like that, even though I'm probably going to take those berries and make maybe fruit syrup or definitely some jam and jellies later, maybe pie fillings, when it comes to the berries, I can put them in the freezer, and that's going to hold them for now.

And I'll be honest, when I'm picking our own berries, so our raspberries and our blueberries especially, I will go off and just pick them off the bushes. They're up high, they're not really low down on the ground. I just go out and pick those berries and eat them. They're not dirty, the dogs can't reach them, urine, that kind of thing, and so when I bring them in, I will pick them, and I put them right into freezer bags, freezer containers, and I put them straight into the freezer. I don't even rinse them and wash them.

Afterwards, when I've thawed, depending on what I'm going to do with them, I can rinse them or wash them, but a lot of times I'm cooking them. And so I have found if you rinse them, then you have to let them dry fully before trying to freeze them, or they tend to just stick together. So especially, if I'm going to be juicing those for syrup or they're going to be going in a steam juicer, they're going to be getting really hot, I'm going to be straining stuff out, like I said, these are berries that I would just be sitting and I would just be picking and eating them right off of the vine. Now, this would be different if they weren't at our house, and I didn't know what things they have been sprayed with, but that's really my quick, fast, and easy that I do with our berries. And then, using the freezer for things like tomatoes, I have shared this before, if you've listened to some of my past summer episodes where we talked about different things with food preservation, but I will take all my tomatoes, and I throw those in the freezer, and then making tomato sauce, so when they're intended for making tomato sauce.

If I'm making salsa, I don't put them in the freezer, and then thaw them because they turn really mushy, and I don't want a really super mushy salsa, but all of my tomato sauce and my ketchup and those types of things, I'm throwing those bad boys in the freezer, and then I can do what I want with them later. And sometimes I just do use them from frozen state, but that is one of the fastest ways for your fresh produce, to be able to preserve it and get to it later. And like I said, there is a limited space in your freezer, depending on what size you have, but it is a really quick and easy way to deal with your produce. Then, up next, really, is fermentation. Fermentation is super easy, doesn't require any electricity or freezer space, and it doesn't heat up the kitchen, so when I'm really in a hurry and I've got stuff coming on, I can do small amounts of produce.

So if it's just even a pint-sized mason jar, if that's all I have coming in, but I need a way to preserve it, I can ferment it. But if I've even got larger volume, that's when I'll be doing my gallon, half gallons, or even we have one of the large crocks, and I can ferment quite a bit in that size of a crock, so it does work larger harvest as well, but that is super fast as far as at mixing the salt for either a wet brine or a dry brine, depending on what it is I'm fermenting, but it's that, and then I'm stuffing the jars, and then it sits there for its fermentation process. The first stage, it requires no hands-on help from me, and that is why it is one of my favorites. I think fermentation is really, as far as fast and ease timewise, because I'm not having to come back and deal with it later like I am ... Some of the things that I put into the freezer, like I said, some of them, I will just thaw from the freezer and use, but a lot of them, I'm then turning into something else, and then preserving it again, so I love fermentation.

And if you are nervous about fermenting, maybe you've never fermented before or you're like, "I know fermentation is good for me, but I'm not super ..." Everything I've ever tried from the store, different places, I find it really sour. I don't find it very palatable, where you're like, "I'm just not really sure what to do, where to get started." I am doing a free fermenting class online, so you are going to want to go to melissaknorris.com/ferment, and you'll see all the details there. I'm going to be doing that on August 12th, so you want to make sure you go and snag your seat, and I look forward to seeing you there, and we will dive into all things fermentation-wise.

But up next on my list is I really love salt-curing my herbs. And herbs are such an easy thing to preserve. Dehydrating herbs, you don't even have to use a dehydrator. So oftentimes, especially if it's smaller things, I will just take the herbs, and I'll just put them in a brown paper bag and hang the brown paper bag outside so there's lots of airflow on our covered porch, and they, keeps the flies off of them, keeps the dust off of them, and they dehydrate super easy. I really like to do that because it doesn't involve the dehydrator and I don't really have to prep a whole lot.

I pretty much just put them in the bag, make sure that there's some airflow, it's not stuffed too tight, and then I just use a clothespin, clothespin the bag, and then just simply hang that up outside. It works like a dream. I also do like salt-curing herbs, especially those herbs like basil, herbs that I don't feel if you dehydrate them, they don't really retain that bright flavor. Like basil is delicious fresh, and it's really good freeze dried. You do have to have a freeze dryer obviously in order to freeze dry them.

But I found just dehydrated basil, I didn't bother for years to even preserve it because I didn't really feel like it had a whole lot of flavor after it dehydrated. Now, some things like rosemary, those really strong herbal flavors, they dehydrate and seem to retain their flavor pretty good in dehydrated state. So I have done basil in salt. I also do it with the leaves of my celery and make a celery salt. Super fast, you just use a high-powered blender and some salt and/or a food processor and salt, so it's a really quick harvest, just a couple of pulses, put it in a jar, and it's good to go.

And I have full tutorials. So in the post that will accompany today's episode, we'll have links to some of these different tutorials so you can actually see the step-by-steps. So make sure that you go to melissaknorris.com if you are listening to this the old-fashioned way. Melissaknorris.com/437. Just the numbers 4, 3, 7 because this is episode number 437.

Okay. Then, I do have a dehydrator. So dehydrating is nice because you do have to prep things. Some things, like a lot of your herbal flowers, you can just put on there, but if it's big pieces of fruit, you do want it sliced, or things in uniform. With dehydrating, especially when it comes to things like berries, you'll want to check them, so you wouldn't want to put blueberries in whole.

You can check them, which is either putting them into the freezer ... I find this fastest rather than poking and piercing every single berry because that would take forever, and this is supposed to be fast and easy, I don't have time to do that. I'm sure you don't either. So when it comes to checking berries, in order to dehydrate them, for me, I throw them into the freezer until they're frozen, and then pull them out and let them start to thaw, or you can even take them frozen, put them on the dehydrator trays because as they thaw, their skins will burst, which is why, oftentimes, I will freeze berries if I'm making jam or jelly because it releases its juices earlier. Well, it'll check your berries as well for dehydrating.

And the reason you want that skin to be pierced, which is called checking, and you can do it with a freezer or you can take like a little pushpin, I know people will actually just sit and pierce every berry, but if you break that skin, then it's going to dehydrate faster, because it's got more air exposure, and then the heat and the air, as it's dehydrating, it just quickens that process up. So even with doing that, depending upon the size of the berries, how much moisture content they have in them, et cetera, with a dehydrator, you're still looking at a good couple of days in most cases for them to dehydrate fully, but it's not hands-on like if you're canning them, or making jam or jelly. So it's a pretty low as far as hands-on part. Again, I'm just putting them in the freezer, then I'm not really doing anything till they're frozen, then I'm just spreading them out on trays. Not a ton of hands-on time in order to preserve them.

So that's kind of one of my other ... I feel like it's kind of ... It is fast and easy in comparison to canning, but not as quite as fast and easy as some of the other modes of food preservation. Now, this one falls right along the lines with dehydrating, and that's freeze-drying. So freeze-drying, as far as easy and hands-on time, is extremely fast and easy.

You literally are putting the food on the trays, you're sliding them into the machine, and you're hitting start. Now, depending on what it is you're freeze-drying, it can take a day up to 72 hours if it's certain fruits, like I've had blueberries take a really long time. They take a long time in the dehydrator too, but again, it's no hands-on. It's just going, and then it will beep, I will check it, see if it needs to go a couple more hours, and then when it's done, I'm simply putting it into my mason jars, vacuum sealing those, and then they're good. So as far as hands-on time, pretty fast, even though overall time can take a few days, and extremely easy.

I have to say the freeze-drying is probably even easier, in all honesty, than the dehydrator. So this has been a fairly short episode because I wanted to just go with the fast and easy. It's kind of like down and dirty. These are the things that I'm using when I don't have a lot of time. Now, again, we'll have tutorials and videos on how to do all of those things, including canning, because while canning might not necessarily be fast and easy, it is one of my favorites, and my first love of home food preservation is, I have to say, canning.

So we've got tutorials and all of that on the website and/or in my book, Everything Worth Preserving. So if you want a printed copy of all nine ways, including all of my recipes, highly recommend you grab a copy of Everything Worth Preserving. And today's episode is sponsored and brought to you by Azure Standard. And Azure Standard is one of my favorite places. You've heard me probably talk about them a lot if you have been hanging around out on the podcast with me for a while, and if not, you will.

They carry a plethora of things, including canning supplies. They have canning jars, they have canning lids, they carry Redmond's Real Salt, which is the salt that I use for all of this, my own food preservation and cooking needs on the homestead for both fermenting and canning, as well as just ... It's the only thing that we stock, so we use it for everything. They carry that. And they also have some different books.

So they did have Everything Worth Preserving in stock, and that's where I get all of my sugar. So if I'm doing jams and jellies, I always make sure that I have plenty of sugar on hand for those, even though a majority of my recipes are low sugar recipes, meaning, they use a lot less sugar than most recipes that you'll find out there, but I still do use some sugar in the preservation of those. But Azure Standard is just the place that I go for pretty much all of our staples. They also have fruit. So if there are certain fruits and fresh produce that you're not growing or don't have access to, then you can get that and they will ship that.

I've gotten some great boxes of cherries from them in the past and some other ... I think I also got some peaches from them last year. My peach tree is still really in its infancy, and we'll only get a couple of peaches a year until it gets bigger. So they can be a great place for you, actually, to get some of that produce if it's something you're not growing to then preserve. So you can go to azurestandard.com and use coupon code Melissa15, just Melissa, then the number one, five, and you'll get 15% off your first time order of $100 or more.

And onto our verse of the week. We are in Psalms, Psalm 3, and verse 3 through 5. This is the Amplified translation. "But You, O Lord, are a shield for me, my glory, and the lifter of my head. With my voice I cry to the Lord, and He hears and answers me out of His holy hill.

Selah, pause and calmly think of that. I lay down and slept, I wakened again, for the Lord sustains me." Yet, it's really verse 3 and 5 that stood out to me when I was reading this psalm. We were going through a couple of days stretch when we had a lot going on, and both my husband and I were putting in really long hours, and my husband was actually putting in some longer hours than me as far as physical goes. He was doing some 12 and some 14-hour days, and I was reading this and it really just kind of became my prayer for that day and the next few days when we were in that season, and I know we'll go through busy seasons again.

I know many of you are too, and so sometimes it's busy where you're just physically doing a lot, but sometimes it's also that mental state, and sometimes it's both of those together. So just to remember that when we're feeling worn out, or down, or overwhelmed, to pray to the Lord that He is the lifter of our head. And I just had such this tender vision of that, of when you're feeling down, and oh, you're just tired and just that gentle, like almost caress and lift, like, "Look up, child" when I was reading this, and then, of course, "When I lay down and slept, and I wakened again, for the Lord sustains me." And so I find great comfort in that when I remember not to rely on my own strength and not to rely necessarily on my own stamina, but that the Lord is the lifter of my head, and He is the One who sustains me, and all I need to do is cry out to Him, and He hears and answers me. So I have just found this psalm.

I keep going back to it in these verses and just meditating on them and rereading them. So I hope that they bring you comfort and a reminder that He is the lifter of your head, He hears you, and He will be the One that sustains us. Thank you so much for joining me this week. Blessings, and mason jars for now, my friends.