Canning recipes, food preservation and food sales

[TheGrey]

I just finished reading One Year After, the sequel to William Forstchen's novel, One Second After, about the effects of an EMP detonation over the United States. I've also read Lights Out and Collision Course by David Crawford. All, highly recommended reading. These books address the scenario in which 80-90% of the US population is projected to die off within 6 months due to starvation, medical emergency, rioting and warfare. I'm now starting Lights Out: A Cyberattack, A Nation Unprepared, Surviving the Aftermath, by Ted Koppel. Whether the SHTF happens by and EMP or some other widespread disaster, the apocalyptic scenario seems very plausible to me.


For me (as an Eagle Scout), being prepared is one of my core values. I suppose I first learned from my grandmother who lived through the Great Depression and always kept a locked cold cellar pantry in the basement, stocked with canned and dry goods. My wife and I do much the same and we could possibly live for 2 years off what we have stored in the pantry and freezers. I do keep some bulk dry goods such as beans, rice, lentils, coffee, dehydrated fruit and veggies, etc., in buckets and tubs. Recently, our supply of pinto beans (that I packed 7 years ago) was running low so I picked up a 10 lb. bag and vacuum packed them in meal sized portions. 2 1/2 cups of pinto weighs about a pound and will make a crock pot full of food, enough for several meals. It's a great addition to elk steak, hamburger, or any other red meat. We usually freeze leftover beans but I like the idea of canning them and may put up a batch or two of that soon.


I want to increase my dry goods storage and am curious what types of dry goods you guys have put up for long term storage, what methods you use, and how long you've been able to keep it in good condition?

I haven't read any of those books except One Second After, so I've got to catch up!

I have a dehydrator, but aside from drying cherries, I haven't used it much. One thing that concerns me about keeping things like dried beans and such is that they use up a lot of water to rehydrate. We're not really near a source of decent water, so if any sort of disaster happens and we're without city water for whatever reason, we must rely on the water that I've stored. If our electricity is knocked out, that means no crock-pot. Come to think of it, a Sun Oven may be the way to go with this. I can more food than I freeze, ever since we lost electricity in a house fire and everything in the freezer was gone.

I would love to know more about dry storage. Can you tell me more about how to secure coffee? Do you keep dry beans or grounds? How will it keep from going stale? What is the best way to keep flour and sugar? I have read books and blogs, but they all say something a bit different from each other.

[Hummer]

I haven't read any of those books except One Second After, so I've got to catch up!

I have a dehydrator, but aside from drying cherries, I haven't used it much. One thing that concerns me about keeping things like dried beans and such is that they use up a lot of water to rehydrate. We're not really near a source of decent water, so if any sort of disaster happens and we're without city water for whatever reason, we must rely on the water that I've stored. If our electricity is knocked out, that means no crock-pot. Come to think of it, a Sun Oven may be the way to go with this. I can more food than I freeze, ever since we lost electricity in a house fire and everything in the freezer was gone.

I would love to know more about dry storage. Can you tell me more about how to secure coffee? Do you keep dry beans or grounds? How will it keep from going stale? What is the best way to keep flour and sugar? I have read books and blogs, but they all say something a bit different from each other.

Yes, dry beans especially take a lot of water and energy to cook, but they have a longer shelf life than canned foods. Without electricity, we'll be cooking on gas and wood burning appliances, mostly outdoors.

I have stored coffee beans in original packaging for 12-18 months, and notice it starts getting stale at about 6 months. I have some that I vacuum packed a year ago with the food saver. It seems to be fine. I've read that the best way is to buy green, unroasted coffee beans in bulk, and vacuum package it so it can last a few years. Then pan roast them over the camp fire or in the rotisserie on the grill. Some local coffee shops sell green beans and I've been meaning to pick up a 25 or 50 lb. bag.

We keep 100-200 lbs. of sugar in original packages and have never had it go bad. It gets rotated when I make fruit wines and feed hummers in the summer. We haven't stored or vacuum packed flour or grains in bulk beyond what's in the pantry that we would use in 6 months to a year. We don't use a lot of flour now but the demand might change if the SHTF. Was hoping to learn from others who do....

[Brian]

I need to figure out how to build a better cold pantry in the basement. Growing up in a rural area, even those who lived in town often had dug-out areas in the basement that were cooler than a normal basement for storing things root-cellar like. You just don't see that here in the city as much and I haven't figured out how to solve for it. Partly complicated in my situation by having a walk-out basement I guess. Humidity (lack of) is also a problem here too. I had a bunch of garlic and other root veggies from our mini-garden the last year or so, but they just don't keep as long as I remember them keeping as a kid. My garlic is already getting pretty dry.

I haven't read Collision Course yet, so I'll add that to the list. Another oldie but goodie is Alas, Babylon if you've never read it. I like it because it has less of a "mall ninja's dream" feel compared to some of the other popular books out that were more recently written.

[Hummer]

You probably won't like Collision Course any better than I did because of the flawed mall ninja type characters. Still, it's worth a read to know what you may be up against. I really liked David Crawford's Lights Out because of the characters, the story of collaboration, weapons and tactics. I also enjoyed Forstchen's One Year After, though not as much as the first novel. Apparently there is another follow up book in the works.

Same idea for a cold cellar room as with building a wine cellar. In our colder climate, best on the north side of the basement. Insulate the walls facing the warm interior space and ceiling, and leave the exterior concrete walls and floor uninsulated. A pan of water with or without a fan can add humidity. Folks who build wine cellars often use small air conditioners timed to run only a few hours a day to keep things cold. 56-58F is good for wine, 45F is better for a root cellar. Apples, pears, potatoes and carrots like it closer to freezing, like 34F.

[TheGrey]

Sprouts has Roma tomatoes on sale for 2 lbs /$1. Go get them!

[TheGrey]

Cherries are still on sale at Sprouts. Actually, they're on sale everywhere, but Sprouts has the best prices at $1.98/lb.

I bought a few pounds to pit and dehydrate.

[encorehunter]

We have been busy putting up plums, apples, pears and peaches. We have put up at least 18 5 gallon buckets so far. The green and red plums made great jellies and fruit leather. 20 pints of apple butter, apples in the dehydrator now, along with one rack of pears. We used the apple peeler and core to peel and core the pears. I've never dried them before, so we figured to try and see what they would do.
My only problem is, my wife mentioned to a customer at the restaurant we were making jelly. Can I buy some?, turned into almost a business in itself. She has sold 18 jars of plum jelly at $13 a pint, and 20 jars of apple butter at $15. We used the money to buy more jars and a new SS juicer to try out.
We have 34 batches of juice for jelly in the freezer all ready with 6 more 5 gallon buckets on the table.

[encorehunter]

The pears in the dehydrator turnew out great. I made another 5 gallon bucket into slices and are in the dehydrator now, along with a few racks of peaches.

Does anyone have a plum pitter they use and like? I've been looking at them on the Internet today, none are in stock on amazon, most have a low rating. The big one I looked at is no longer made.

[rbeau30]

Watch for Sales on Mason Jars! King Soopers (7.99 - 8.99 per case of jars) and Bed Bath and Beyond have good prices.

Canning salt was $1.79 for a 3 pound box... That is awesome.

[TheGrey]

OKay, so in the spring we had an arborist come and do a "deep root fertilization" for our big Maple. Since they had the truck there, we had them also fertilize our peach tree (common Elberta peach) and our semi-dwarf Honeycrisp apple tree.

Since there was no hard "Mother's Day frost" this year, and combined with the fertilization treatment, our fruit trees were so heavy with fruit that some of the branches were nearly breaking.

I watched the Honeycrisp closely, but some sort of damn bugs got to every damn apple- they were wormy and some sort of beetle was eating the leaves. We didn't get a single Honeycrisp from our heavily-laden tree.

The peach tree, on the other hand, provided many, many pounds of the sweetest peaches I've ever tasted. Some peaches were sacrificed to the wildlife, but many went into a lovely spiced peach jam.

Here's the recipe. And when I say 'recipe', it's very loosely meant:

8 - 12# of peeled, pitted, ripe peaches. (After picking the fruit, remove any bruises or spots from the peaches, put them in boiling water for about 5 minutes, then put the peaches into very cold water. Make an "x with a knife at the bottom of the peach. In theory, the skin should peel away easily. Be careful- the pit will be very hot!)

2 1/2 - 4 c of sugar.

2-3 Tbsp lemon juice.

Put peeled peaches into a large pot on the stove. Do not turn the heat on yet. Sprinkle the sugar over the surface of the peaches, and stir. Do it again and again. You're essentially trying to put layers of sugar among the peaches, to make sure they are covered. Let the pot sit undisturbed for at least an hour, until the sugar is fully dissolved. You'll see a lot of peach juice, too.

Add the lemon juice, and stir.

Now turn on the heat- you want the heat to be medium at most. You're going to bring the peaches to a boil. Stir often, and don't let them scorch or burn. Boil them for ten minutes, and then turn off the heat. Let the peaches get to room temperature. Turn on the heat to medium again. This is also the point that you can taste the peaches and see if they need more sugar. I'll also add a spice recipe below if you want spiced peaches.

Repeat the heat and stir and cool down and heat again SIX times.

Now, this is going to take a ridiculous amount of time. The nice thing is that the sugar serves as a preservative, so you can let it sit covered (off of the heat) overnight with no issue. My first batch not only sat overnight, but I was only able to do one cycle of heat/boil/stir/turn off heat before I had to go work for the day. It's fine.

As you get to the fourth and fifth and sixth boil, you'll notice it getting thicker and thicker. The heat will not have to be as high in order to bring to a boil. That means you need to watch it very carefully so as not to scorch and burn it. If you want spiced peach jam, add the spices in before the third boil.

You'll notice this recipe does not call for pectin; it uses the peach's own pectin and sugar to help it gel and act as a preserve.

If you want smoother jam, use a hand blender to blend up chunks between the fifth and sixth boiling.

After the sixth boil, water bath can the jam while it's still hot.

Voila!

Spice recipe: for 8-10 pounds of peaches, use 1/2 tsp of the following, mixed in a small bowl before added to the jam: Allspice, Cinnamon, Ginger, Ground Cloves, nutmeg, and if you have it, Cardamom.
For over 10 pounds of peaches, increase the spices to 1 tsp each of the above spices.

Enjoy!