A glut or excess harvest can be a bit of a dilemma. Often all of your tomatoes ripen at once, or you find you have a whole tree of apricots or apples and not enough bellies to consume them!
So how can we save some away for the leaner months without spoiling? Well the best way is to preserve your produce, but there are many ways to achieve this and one method may not work on all type of food. I have used all of these methods with success and preserving day is often long and tiring. However, it is always rewarding, especially when you pull out a jar of some fruit or vegetable, or cheese, or meat that you have preserved yourself. Very gratifying.
So without further ado, here are our 9 ways to preserve your excess produce.
Pickling
Pickling is achieved by using vegetables or fruit and using a vinegar and salt solution to preserve them in. In most cases, the sealed jar is also water bath treated to prevent bacterial contamination.
I have pickled limes, cucumbers, and chutney using this method.
Water Bath
Most high acid or high sugar fruit and vegetables can be preserved using the water bath method. You place your filled jars into a big pot and fill it with water to just under the lids, and bring the temperature up to around 95°C (203°F) for a designated time depending on the contents and the recipe you used.
I use an Australian brand method called Fowlers-Vacola, which has a special pot, jars, and lids. You can see it in action in these post Cherry Time! or Homemade Passata di pomodoro.
Jam and Jellies
Turning fruit and some vegetables into jam and jellies is a great way to preserve the essence of these fruits. The addition of pectin and sugar convert the heated fruit into a viscous liquid that can be poured (or strained for jelly using a jelly bag) into hot sterilised jars with pop-top lids and/or water bathed if you want to be a bit safer. My favourite jams are Marmalade, Strawberry, Fig, and Chili!
Curing
Curing is achieved using salt as the main preservative. Meat and some vegetables like olives can be preserved using this method. Curing meat has to be performed in hygienic and cold conditions to make sure that bacterial contamination is avoided. The right fat to meat and salt ratio is essential for good taste and proper curing.
I have cured salami and olives using salt as the cure.
Blanching/Freezing
Excess vegetables can be blanched then frozen to preserve them for up to six months. With that said, I must admit that I often find a bag of broad beans or peas at the back of the freezer after a year and they are perfectly fine for use in stews and casseroles!
By putting your vegetables in boiling water for a few minutes, you are aiming to kill the enzymes that make the beans rot, not to cook them outright. Then they are cooled down rapidly and frozen straight away.
Here is the method I use to blanch Broad Beans.
Drying
I use this method for lazy housewife and scarlet runner beans and popcorn. It’s so simple. I just leave the bean pods on the vine until they dry out, and then store the dried beans in a jar with one of those oxygen absorbing pouches you find in some foods. This helps keep them dry if you don’t have a good seal. With popcorn, allow the ears to dry out completely, then husk the corn kernels into a jar for when you want to make some yummy popcorn.
Your can also make or buy solar dehydrators that so the same thing. They simply use the sun’s infrared radiation to dry the vegetables or fruit so that you can store it for longer. Electric dehydrators can also be utilised if you don’t have a sunny climate. I have even seen people use the parcel shelf in their car to dry fruit!
Fermenting
fermentation is an easy way to preserve certain vegetables like cabbage, in the form of sauerkraut and kimchi, or to produce the most wonderful drinks like kombucha tea, or my favourite, Beer! Yeast is the main active ingredient in all fermentation, whether that be wild or cultured yeasts, it doesn’t matter. They convert sugars into alcohol which helps preserve the food.
Vacuum Packing
This preserving method can be used to extend the life of meat and dried herbs and vegetables, however most items still need to be refrigerated after vacuum sealing. It works by sucking the majority of the air out of the container which assists in preventing spoilage and rotting.
It can also be used to mature cheese in lieu of waxing to prevent the cheese from drying out and becoming infected by unwanted bacteria and moulds.
Waxing
Great for preserving cheese for maturation and for sealing jars of jam. I have even used wax to seal swing top lids when making tomato sauce to ensure an airtight seal. Waxing simply prevents air from getting to the encased food and depending on the food type and if kept in a cool place will keep for an extended period.
Check out how I have waxed cheese to help keep out unwanted moulds and bacteria.
Preserving is Fun
I love preserving my excess produce. I make sure I have a few hours allocated to the task without any distractions, then I get stuck into preparing the food for preserving or storage. I find that if I set up all the necessary equipment first, then it seems like less of a chore.
What other methods do you use to preserve your excess harvest? I am sure that there are some that I have missed. Chime in with a comment below.
Bek says
I would add pressure canning. Similar to the water bath method, but a high pressure unit allows for much higher temps to be generated, so you don’t need the acid/sugar/salt needed in lower temp methods to have a safe end product. No one wants botulism. I use it to preserve fruit without adding sugar, tomatoes (can be vaiable acid so this way I don’t need to add citric or other acids to the toms), artichokes and one day I want to buy a whole salmon and can that for home canned fish.
Gavin Webber says
Great addition Bek. That’s one piece of kit that I don’t have but always on the look out. Do you use ball or mason jars or do the fowlers-vacola jars and lids work as well?
Bek says
I mainly use mason jars in general. I like the sizes available and find them easy to use be it in the water bath or the pressure canner. I have a few Fowlers jars but not enough lids and rings, so I tend to go straight to the masons.
Louise says
Just to let you know that Fowlers Vac cannot be used in pressure canners. Ball and Mason or Kerrs are strong enough to withstand the pressure canner, but the lady at FV told me not to use them. Water bath canners only.
Louise
Gavin Webber says
Thanks for the heads up Louise.
Lynda D says
Awesome post Gav. I’ll be revisiting this one many times in the future, im sure.
Gavin Webber says
Thank Lynda. I had been meaning to write it for a while. Glad it helps.
kmfinigan says
Great post! My biggest trouble has been the nearly 200kg of apples that I harvested this year – stewing apples and freezing pies worked really well for us! http://bit.ly/1Cc276Y Ive also done similar things with an excess of broccoli and cauliflower http://bit.ly/1uBWpqq
tracyinkc says
A great Listicle! You made a difference here. I gotta get busy blanching–instead of just freezing my abundant veggies. Then back to my 31 days of better blogging.