The LocalHarvest Blog

Welcome back to the LocalHarvest newsletter.

Late summer and fall find me in the kitchen a few more hours a week than usual, squirreling away food for the winter. Pickles, salsa, tomato sauce, pickled jalapenos, frozen greens, applesauce, dried tomatoes - every year the list gets a little longer and we eat a little better. I am not alone: home canning is making a comeback, thanks to both the recent surge of interest in gardening and the growing number of people looking to eat local food throughout the winter. "It's almost like a three step evolution - first people recognize the benefits of eating local food, then they grow some of their own, and then inevitably they realize that a whole lot of food is ripe at once and you have to do something with it!" says Lori Evesque, who teaches canning classes in Southwest Michigan. Her well attended hands-on workshops are drawing people with a wide range of ages and experience levels, from those who have never laid eyes on a hot water bath canner, to those who used to preserve food years ago but want a refresher course before starting again.

Lori's experience is being repeated all over the country, as practiced food preservationists step forward to teach interested people the necessary skills. Tess Schaffner, owner of Off the Vine Market in Lanexa, VA, the food preservation classes offered by have also been well attended. The owner, says the main hurdle for people is time. "When they hear about our classes, many people's first reaction is, 'I don't have time for that!', but we show them how an investment of time making and freezing marinara sauce in the summer leads to quick, healthy meals in the winter."

As the bags under my eyes this time of year will attest, if you get bit hard by the food preservation bug, the time investment can be significant. Midnight seems to come earlier at the end of tomato season! But Tess is right about the time savings later. Last month I froze a dozen bags of enchilada sauce after experimenting with how to adapt my favorite recipe to use homegrown fresh tomatoes instead of canned sauce. It is delicious, if I do say so myself. Even better, I'm all set up to make some very fine, reasonably easy meals. We freeze a lot of greens too. Once a week through the winter I will pull out a bag of blanched kale from the freezer in the morning, let it thaw until suppertime, and then in about 15 minutes have a beautiful white bean, rosemary, kale dish on the supper table, with enough left over for lunches the next day. Nutritious, quick, and home made - worth a few late nights in the summer.

One recipe I would recommend if you want to try making just one thing this fall is homemade applesauce. It is easy, delicious, nutritious, inexpensive, and almost everyone loves it. You can freeze it in bags, can it in jars, or eat it right away. There are lots of ways to make it, but one recipe is found in a great new book about food preservation, Put 'em Up! Thanks to Storey Publishing, we will have a copy of this new title for six lucky newsletter readers. See below for details, and try something new!

As always, take good care and eat well,
Erin

Erin Barnett
Director
LocalHarvest