Preserve What You Eat

When deciding what to put away for the winter think first about what foods you actually eat throughout the year. It sounds obvious, but many of us end up preserving foods we never get around to using. (Hello, frozen cauliflower from four year ago.)

The goal of food preserving is to eat through your pantry each year. You don’t want to find frozen red peppers from 2014 at the bottom of the chest freezer five years from now. That’s a complete waste of time and energy.

I recommend that my clients take some time to assess their eating and buying habits before deciding what vegetables to put high on their food preserving list. The best way to do this is to take a few minutes to answer the following questions:

What fruits and vegetables do I buy from the grocery store on a weekly basis?

What meals and snacks are regular features of my family’s diet?

Are there foods I want to eat out of season?

What foods taste noticeably better when I eat them during their local growing season?

Which foods provide the highest value when preserved? (What’s expensive to purchase at the store out of season)?

What foods will make me happy to have stored in my pantry?

If you’re a beginning food preserver I suggest taking stock of your answers to the above questions and picking three to five priorities for the season. It’s easy to get overwhelmed by food preserving, so focusing on a few key items to start will keep you sane. You can always add more to the list next year.

If you have some experience in preserving, use these questions to examine what you’ve been putting away so far and see how those items match up with your answers.

In either case, remember, the goal is to eat everything you preserve each season so that you’re starting with an empty pantry when food preserving time comes back around again next year.

Food preserving doesn’t have to be hard. You can store plenty of food in your basement, fridge and freezer with a few quick and easy steps. Super Easy Food Preserving, the ebook, will show you how!