Fruit/Vegetable Preservation

Before the days of refrigeration, food had to be consumed quickly or preserved in one of 5 ways - drying, salting, pickling, fermenting or canning. Canning is actually a fairly new technique but the idea of making jams and syrups is not since sugar acts as a great preserver.
Vinegar, salt, sugar and oil help retard spoilage. Removing the moisture from a food also prevent spoilage. These are not 100% perfect since spoiling can still occur but our ancestors often ate the food anyway. It was often a choice between eating something or starving.
With refrigeration, we have reduced food preservation into a way to make ingredients. We still use them to preserve the harvest but freezing has taken a good deal of the need away.
Today, we worry about too much salt so preserving through salting, pickling and fermenting have lost their popularity. There was a time these were standard. I have been slowly rediscovering the art of pickling. At first it was just "pickles" - pickled cucumbers. I pickled zucchini once but the recipe was not tasty. Then one year, my aunt asked me to make pickled watermelon rind. I did and it was good but what do you eat it with? From there I pickled beets (which is still somewhat popular)and carrots. This year, I pickled pears. I have to tell you - I love them. Still haven't figured out what to do with them aside from eat them as a snack.
Pickling makes for great "junk" food. The sweet, tangy, salty flavor of the foods is like having potato chips (salt and vinegar are my favorite so this is an easy transition for me). The best part is that the treat is still low calorie and no fat. I'll be working on some ideas for how to serve pickled foods but in the meantime, try some unique pickles.


Asian Pickled Carrots
1 pound baby carrots
1/4 cup peeled and julienned ginger
3 whole allspice
3/4 cup water
3/4 cup rice vinegar
1/3 cup brown sugar
4 whole cloves
4 whole peppercorns
in saucepan, cook carrots in small amount of boiling water for 3 minutes until crisp-tender. Drain and place in jar. Add ginger and allspice to jars. In saucepan, combine remaining ingredients. Bring to boil. Reduce heat and simmer 5 minutes. Pour over carrots and process jars.

Bread and Butter Pickles

Canning season is coming. For some, it may already be here. For us in the Palouse, harvests are far behind and slim. The university orchard finally opened up cherry picking for 1 day this week. That's nearly 4 weeks behind and just goes to demonstrate how tough it might be this year. My garden is struggling but that doesn't mean everyone's is.
This pickle recipe is wonderful and requires no canning skills. You cook the brine but the cucumbers and onions stay raw. What you get in return is a crisp, sweet and sour pickle chip. We even eat the onions. Save the brine and throw in fresh cucumbers and onions.
The recipe says keep for 1 year. We have batches that are over a year (we make a lot of pickles) and they are perfectly fine. You want to make sure they are well sealed to prevent odd flavors coming from stuff in the fridge. We use glass jars for our pickles which seem to preserve them better than plastic.

Bread and Butter Pickles
3 cup sugar
3 cup cider vinegar
1/4 cup salt
1 teas celery seed
1/4 teas turmeric
1 tb mustard seed
a little dill in each jar
mix all ingredients together in saucepan and boil. Let cool. Slice cucumbers and onions into a gallon jar. Pour cooled liquid over veggies until the liquid comes to the top. Refrigerate for 1 week up to a year.

Lime Pickles

I got this recipe from Nigella Lawson's cookbook. It is a great seasoning. Don't let the fear of pickled foods stop you from trying this. The limes are "pickled" in oil infused with tumeric and cumin.

Lime Pickles
10 limes
4 1/2 cups pickling salt
2 1/4 cup cheap olive oil (I use canola for everything)
1 tablespoon turmeric
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
3 dried red chili peppers, crushed (I actually omit this since we don't like it spicy)

Cut limes into eighths. Layer them in a 12x8 glass pan. Cover with salt and freeze overnight (or longer which happens). Thaw, put in colander and rinse thoroughly. I save the salt and put it in a bag in the freezer for future needs. Put into jars. Add spices to oil and pour over limes. Cover limes with oil completely or they will mold. Put in dark place for 3 weeks. The longer you save them the more tender they will be.
I check mine regularly to make sure they have enough oil. If the 2 1/4 cups oil is not enough, divide the seasoned oil amongst the jars and top off with unseasoned oil. When I use the limes and oil I always add more oil to make sure it's covering.

Yesterday, I used some of the oil and limes to make lunch.
I poured some of the oil in a deep skillet and heated it while I cut up raw steak into strips. I fried the steak in the oil while I prepped the remaining ingredients. I chopped an onion and about 5 of the lime pickles. I removed the steak and added some nucoa to regrease the pan. I fried the onions and limes until the onions were tender. I then added some leftover rice to the pan (enough to serve 3). I served the rice with a little soy sauce to balance the tartness of the limes and it was so good.