If you have access to elderberries, fresh or dried, consider making your own elderberry syrup. Use the elderberry syrup in tea, baking, or eat it right off the spoon for some of its immune-boosting properties. (Read more about elderberries.) We are lucky enough to have local access to as many elderberries we could possibly ever…
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Recently In The Gardening Section
Category Archives: Food Preservation
Dehydrating Okra (with an Okra Snack Recipe)
Are you exploring the world of dehydrated vegetables? Many gardeners are these days, including me. This is fairly new territory, but one that is expanding quickly for two reasons: (1) Health foodies are discovering the joy of seasoned veggie chips made in the oven or the dehydrator. (2) Seasoned gardeners are expanding their gardens in…
Tomato Powder: How to Make & Use Powder from Dried Tomatoes
If you garden and preserve a lot of food, sooner or later you face the problem of all those who tread the same path before you. Where do you store it all? The freezers are full. Those special shelves you installed for canned goods are full. The pantry is bursting at the seams. Dehydrating is…
Prune Plum Butter: Using Extra-Small Pit Fruit
Over the decades we have made attempts to start fruit trees amidst gophers, deer, raccoons and an occasional bear. While our more recent efforts have met with some success, there are only three survivors from earlier campaigns. One of those trees is a prune plum given to us by our good friends June and Bobby…
Freezing Cilantro
As a food-loving cook there are a few kitchen staples I do not want to be without. Fresh garlic is one of them. If I run out of garlic, I close the kitchen down. Another is fresh cilantro. It is a critical seasoning agent in a number of our favorite Thai, Mexican, and North African…
Freezing Eggplant
If you plan to preserve part of your summer harvest, put eggplant on the list, particularly if you live in a long-season area. Eggplant starts coming in abundance in late August and can continue into November. You will have lots of opportunity for freezing the extra eggplant. To reap greatest benefit from your preserved eggplant,…
Freezing Apples
Frozen apples are great to have on hand for pies, cakes, and other treats throughout the winter. The process is simple: peel and slice your apples, freeze them on a cookie sheet, and then put them in a plastic freezer bag for longer-term storage. That is the basic process, but we provide more detail here…
Eggplant Puree
Eggplant is a long season crop. The mother lode of eggplant does not arrive here until late August. If the weather stays warm and mild, nights not too chilled, we can pick until Thanksgiving. Considering that the seeds were sown indoors in late March, that’s a long season. If the weather stays friendly, patience pays…
Freezing Tomatoes: 3 Ways to Preserve the Tomato Harvest
In the middle of winter do you miss your summer tomatoes? Even the finest groceries have sorry looking tomatoes in January. What is so plentiful in August is not to be found once the frosts begin. If you have a garden or access to plenty of garden-fresh tomatoes, you can use your freezer to preserve…
Freezing Corn
There is nothing like corn on the cob fresh from the garden. In years when we grow our own we might bring the water to a boil and only then harvest our corn and run it into the kitchen to be cooked. Freshness is that important. However, throughout the year corn is great to have…
Freezing Garlic
On occasion, we luck into a case of garlic at fire sale prices at a fruit stand. If the cloves are full and healthy, we buy it and run. However, there is no reasonable way to use an entire case of garlic in regular cooking without losing some to spoilage. We opt to freeze a…
Roasted Tomatoes For Tomato Sauce (Two Methods)
If you have a tomato bounty, the tomato roasting method is ideal for processing those tomatoes that are undersized, misshapen or a bit too soft for salad or sandwich. All that is necessary is to wash them well and cut out the stem caps. There is no need to peel or seed your tomatoes. In…
How To Make Fruit Leather
If your peaches ripen in the same week, if a generous neighbor brings you a lug of plums, or if you get a great deal on apricots at a local fruit stand, what can you do with your bounty? Fruit leather is a great option. It is quick and easy — you can process quite…
Freezing Peaches: Two Freezing Methods for Different Needs
Just about every summer we luck into a case or two of extremely ripe peaches that must be used immediately. While we could make and eat a couple of dozen pies on the spot, it always seems more reasonable to freeze the peaches for future pies, cakes, and smoothies. Canning would certainly be an option,…
Zucc-Raisins (Dehydrated Candied Zucchini)
We discovered “zucc-raisins” when experimenting with “candied zucchini” — zucchini cubes cooked in a sugar syrup that we use in baked goods calling for fresh fruit. I decided to take the idea a step further and create a product that would preserve the zucchini better and could also replace dried fruit in our recipes. Zucc-raisins…
How To Freeze Greens (Spinach, Kale, Collards, Swiss Chard and More)
Until this spring, we never had the need to preserve garden greens in this household. We easily ate the bit of greens coming out of our garden. We typically consume store-bought greens immediately or end up composting the green slime they turn into. (I am sure we are the only household that does not finish…
Dehydrating Apples for Apple Chips
Apple chips are a great delight and they are simply dehydrated apples, a process you can do in your own home each fall and enjoy apple chips all year round. We use our Apple Peeler Corer Slicer to turn out as many apple slices as our dehydrator will hold. Where to Buy Apple Chips in…
Freezing Zucchini
Freezing zucchini is a great way to preserve the flavors of summer. Here we provide a process to freeze zucchini that has already been grated. You freeze it in amounts appropriate for your recipes, usually in two-cup portions. This method works very well for dealing with over-grown zucchini. You may have noticed that they are…
Freezing Green Peppers
As summer rolls to an end and the pepper harvest reaches its peak, you may be wondering what you will do with all of your peppers. We offer two excellent approaches: a simple method of freezing green peppers by chopping them in rounds, spreading them on a cookie sheet, freezing them, and then re-bagging them…
Sun Dried Tomatoes
Sun dried tomatoes are a great treat. You can buy sun-dried tomatoes or dry tomatoes yourself should you have access to a bumper crop. Either way, you can enjoy the rich, musky flavor of a sun dried tomato all year round. Where to Buy Sun Dried Tomatoes You should be able to find sun dried…
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Located in the Sequoia National Forest: P.O. Box 37, California Hot Springs, CA 93207
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Located in the Sequoia National Forest: P.O. Box 37, California Hot Springs, CA 93207
(Send only cool mail, of course)
Traditional-Foods.com is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.
About
The Traditional Foods site comes to you from the Sequoia National Forest in a house designed by Irving Gill. We are a mother-daughter team strong in both the science and the art of cooking. We chronicle our cooking here and our adventures in the forest at Gill on the Hill. Read more about our background and food philosophy.