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Blanching Vegetables Before Freezing
Blanch just harvested, fresh vegetables to set their color and seal nutrients and flavor. Blanching is a method of partially cooking vegetables in boiling water or steam—usually for a few minutes; it’s...
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Freezing Blueberries and Other Berries
Frozen Blueberries Freeze just harvested blueberries and also raspberries, elderberries, currants, huckleberries, blackberries, boysenberries, loganberries, mulberries, and strawberries for thawing and...
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Beginner’s Guide to Canning Peppers
Can sweet bell peppers and chile peppers—which can be sweet or hot–to preserve your summer harvest? Can peppers after deciding if you want to preserve sweet or heat or a combination of the two? Sweet...
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Canning Sweet Pickle Relish
Sweet pickle relish topping Sweet pickle relish combines cucumbers, green or red bell peppers, and onions from the summer garden. This is the classic relish to enjoy on hot dogs and hamburgers. Half...
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How to Make Dill Pickles for Beginners
Dill pickles from cucumbers and dill sprigs You can turn cucumbers into pickles in about 40 minutes. It’s not difficult. My favorite pickling cucumbers are County Fair, National Pickling, Pickle Bush,...
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Canning Peaches for Beginners
Canning peaches is simple. You will need just ripe peaches that are not soft or mushy, and you will need about 45 minutes of preparation time and about 25 minutes of processing time. Peaches are...
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How to Can Pasta Sauce for Beginners
A tomato-rich sauce for pasta is a variation on a theme. You know your favorite pasta sauce and when the tomato harvest comes in summer, you have the opportunity to can your favorite tomato-based...
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How to Can Green Beans for Beginners
Cut green beans into short pieces for canning. Green beans are easy to can. You pick them, quickly snap or cut them in half or short pieces, simmer them for four minutes or less, pack them in jars, and...
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How to Make Plum Jam for Beginners
Plum jam Plums jam is easy to make; all you need is fresh, ripe plums, sugar and a bit of lemon juice. From start to finish, you will have plum jam in less than an hour. Plums are a diverse lot; they...
View ArticleWays to Serve Maple Syrup
Use maple syrup as a replacement for sugar or as a flavoring for desserts such as pies, soufflés, mousses, and cakes. When you use maple syrup to replace sugar, reduce the amount of liquid in the...
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How to Freeze Ripe Tomatoes
Freeze tomatoes whole or cut. Freeze the bounty of tomatoes you don’t eat fresh this summer for use in cooking next winter. How to freeze a tomato Freeze tomatoes whole or cut them into wedges. Wash...
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How to Sun-Dry and Oven-Dry Tomatoes
Sun-dry tomatoes or oven-dry tomatoes to use for seasoning in salads, soups, stews, casseroles, mixed vegetables, and snacks. You can also rehydrate dried tomatoes for use in cooking. Dried tomatoes...
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Storing Vegetables for Winter Use
When harvest time comes for each crop in your vegetable garden, the best specimens are best used right away–send them straight to the table. Good specimens that you can’t use fresh, store for later...
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Melon en Surprise
Melon en Surprise was Auguste Escoffier’s title for a five line description of a tasty combination of melons and other fresh fruits in his 1903 masterpiece Le Guide Culinaire.Of course, Escoffier was...
View ArticleWatermelon Flavor Pairings to Complement Your Harvest Table
The sweet flavor of watermelon is well matched to herbal and sour flavors and to other sweet flavors. The key to matching watermelon to other foods is to find a taste complement or counterpoint. The...
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Canning the Asparagus Harvest
Canning asparagusHome grown asparagus can be cut for canning the second spring after planting. The harvest time lasts 4 to 6 weeks and begins when temperatures rise above 55°F. Then asparagus sends up...
View ArticleHow to Preserve Hot Peppers: Drying, Fermenting & Pickling
If you’ve ever harvested a bounty of hot peppers from your garden, you know that sometimes it’s hard to keep up with the sheer volume of peppers. Over the years, I’ve had my fair share of pepper...
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How to Store and Preserve Cucumbers for Freshness and Flavor
Cucumbers are one of the most refreshing and versatile vegetables, but they can quickly lose their crisp texture and flavor if not stored properly. With over 30 years of growing experience, I’ve...
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