Dehydrating the harvest

Most produce can easily be dehydrated with little preparation. I do even less preparation than is often recommended because I'm kind of lazy (okay maybe it's more about being busy but still). Some foods brown when they come in contact with the air and it is recommended that you soak them in lemon juice to prevent the color change. This creates a prettier end product with a slight lemon tinge. I don't like the lemon tinge. If I eat a dried banana, I want to just taste banana. So my fruit doesn't always look pretty. It's not pretty when I mash it up between my teeth either so what do I care.
You don't have to buy a dehydrator to dehydrate foods. I like the convienence of a dehydrator but I've also had mine for nearly 15 years. They do get pricey but mine was a bottom of the line, not fancy sort of machine that has given me nothing but pleasure. The only disadvantage to my dehydrator is that it is round with a hole in the center for air circulation. For most things, the shape doesn't cause a problem but won't work for long strips of vegetable or meat.
My mother found her monster of a dehydrator at a garage sale. It has long metal screens that remind me of window screens for drying the food (compared to my plastic grids). The advatages she has is there is no problem getting her harvest on the screens, the openings are really small so no falling berries (my elderberries did a lot of escaping) but the sheer size of the dehydrator is a pain.
I share these things because it will make a difference when you go to purchase your own. It's not enough to look at the features of a product but how and where you will store and use it makes a difference we don't often think of.
As I said, you don't have to have a dehydrator. You can dry in the oven or in the sun. Alton Brown has an awesome way to make jerky using a box fan and several paper filters (the sort you use in a furnace). It's my plan to try his method someday. I believe paper filters are rather inexpensive at Walmart.
I have seen many books on drying foods. These are great for learning, especially if you are not using a dehydrator. My dehydrator has settings for each type of food and I run it until the food is really dry. If there is any concern, I throw the food in a freezer bag and freeze it. It may seem counter-productive but freezing dried fruit takes up a lot less space than the whole fruit.
WSU has a good beginner site and your local library should have plenty of books. For creative dehydrating recipes, check out raw food books and sites. One site that was recommended to me was Gone Raw.

Freezer Expirations

This information comes from the October 2011 issue of Taste of Home Magazine.

As I said yesterday, I never thought of things in the freezer as having an expiration date. The freezer was always a place I tucked things away for a better day or to extend the life of whatever I was freezing. For years, I tucked away things that I never got back to. My husband became the mean man who actually threw away my frozen shriveled treasures that I was sure I would come back to some day.
This list of expiration dates is going to become my new guideline for things in my freezer. The plan is to use up the old zucchini, rhubarb and other produce that I have stashed away over the next couple of months. After that, I will only freeze what I can use in a reasonable amount of time. The meat I freeze will be for each month but with the notion that they will not sit there for more than 60 days (except bacon and you'll see why in just a moment). Using up what I have doesn't always feel like a good strategy. I grew up learning that storage was the way to go. You bought in bulk and then over stacked your pantry, freezer and what ever nooks and crannies you could find. My grandmother was the expert in this. When she moved from Washington to Arizona, she left behind a house full of food. There was enough to feed our entire community of 350 people for several meals (no exaggeration). Most of the food was bad, we gave away five gallon drums of various grains and dried foods to a pig farmer because it was all stale (and unappetising).
That food was a wasted expense and that's not what we want. It may seem counter-productive to not have a huge food store but it guarantees the food isn't wasted. That doesn't mean not having a food storage for emergencies, it just means re-thinking. I promise to go more into emergency food stores at a later date (trust me, I dream of having the money to invest in a huge food store).
Back to the topic at hand: freezer expiration dates

Here is the list - the numbers represent the number of maximum months the food can be stored in the freezer. You'll see this is not an exhaustive list, for more information there are a number of freezer websites out there (and don't hesitate to check with your local extension office).

Cooked Casseroles with Meat 2-3
Cooked Soups and Stews 2-3
Raw Bacon 1
Raw Steak 6-12
Raw Pork Chops 4-6
Raw Hamburger 4
Cooked, plain chicken breast 4
Raw Chicken Pieces 9
Whole Chicken or Turkey 12
Cooked Fish 4-6
Cooked Shrimp 3
Ice Cream 2
Cheese, hard or soft 6
Butter 6-9
Frozen Veggies 8
Baked Pie 1-2
Cheesecake 2-3
Baked Quick Bread 2-3
Yeast Bread or Rolls 3-6
Baked Cookies 8-12

Hope that helps make your freezer storage more efficient. Coming next - how to use up some of those frozen items in my freezer. If you have excess frozen goods - let me know so I can come up with some ideas for you.

Freezing as preservation

There are a variety of products out on the market to improve freezing conditions. Years ago, I succombed and acquired several products (well actually purchased one and got the other two free as part of a special promotion). I bought a Foodsaver Vacuum sealer. I have nothing against the product itself but it wasn't worth the expense. There are some problems with the way I wanted to use the product. I tried to seal zucchini but what it vacuumed out was a lot of moisture making a huge mess and leaving the bags not as I wanted them. I was able to finish storing the zucchini but it wasn't great. I did love the ability to vacuum seal rice krispie treats and granola bars but they aren't something I store a really long time. The Foodsaver system is really pricey and not worth the expense.
The other two systems were from Ziplock - one a battery operated vacuum sealer and the other a hand system that resembled a tire pump. Both required expensive bags that are difficult to find in stores.
In the end, I discovered that investing in freezer bags of a variety of sizes did everything I wanted and was a more reasonable expense. I buy freezer bags in quart and gallon sizes. I fill them carefully and work to remove all the air on my own. I, also, strive to use the products in a reasonable amount of time. Freezing feels like a long term solution but foods do go bad in the freezer. We rarely throw out anything from the freezer but we've eaten things that were not as good as they should have been.
Taste of Home Magazine sent me a free magazine "sample" this month and it was filled with tips for freezing foods. Most of the tips were not unknown but they did include a time line for using up foods in the freezer. I planned on sharing but I left the magazine at home so I'll share that tomorrow. What surprised me was how short those time spans were. Only 1, if I remember correctly, was a year. Most were less than six months. I can tell you that I have things in my freezer that have moved with me and we've lived in our apartment for over two years. Time to really use up those products (might explain why my zucchini muffins were so dry).
I follow a blog that encourages freezing foods so that you can enjoy a dish more than once while cooking once. As much as that sounds like a great plan, it doesn't work for everyone and it doesn't work for me. I barely acknowledge my freezer in my cooking plans. I forget what's in there (hense the kitchen inventory) but more because frozen foods do not appeal to me except frozen vegetables and bananas. I don't mind freezing my meat but I have to know how quickly I can thaw it without using the microwave since I'm terrible at pre-planning (which I am getting better at). This explains my obsession with pasta because I barely have to think about it.
If freezing meals works for you, it can be a great way to save money and time. It often doesn't cost much more to double a recipe, depending on the ingredients and pre-baking goods and freezing them can save waste as well as offer your family a quick and easy breakfast or snack. Check out Once a Month Mom for more tips and recipes.

Preserving the harvest

It's not enough to get a lot of food for a low cost, there needs to be a way of extending it's use. Now I have posted about canning. I will saying canning is one of my favorite ways to preserve food but I'm not a real creative canner nor a real adventurous one. I'm working on it but I stick to just a few types of canned products - pickles and jams being the big ones. I make a lot of pickled foods. They last forever and were amongst the first ways people preserved their harvest. However, I'm not really good at using up those pickled products. My son hates pickles - I have never known a child who hated pickles before. He doesn't mind pickled beets but most everything else is not going to be eaten by him. So I have a pantry with a variety of pickled foods that will be buried with me.
The same goes for jams and jellies. I make a ton because it's easy and rather fun. I give it away by the gallons. Works wonderfully for gifts but it's not doing a lot for my family. I used to cook with jams and jellies but I get out of the habit. I eat my share of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches .
I share this with you because you may come across the same problem. I have a case of applesauce I canned last year. That's food we acquired but didn't eat - it's no better than food I bought and threw away.
I'm not against canning, not by any stretch but I want to caution against the endless pantry. Part of my goals for this winter is to come up with creative ways to actually use the items in our pantry and that we gather so it's actually providing for us.
Another way I preserve my harvest is by freezing. I have a horrible freezer habit - more of an out of sight, out of mind. I had a deep chest freezer that wasn't all that large but I lost so much in the bottom of it. I have finally gotten rid of that extra freezer space but now the freezer above my fridge is packed full (no more ice cream for us). I had to actually stop myself from freezing stuff. I was one of those great freezer bag users - I froze extra bits of bread and fat for future use that never came. It's a bad habit I have - it's like I'm almost squirrling food away but I don't use it.
My favorite way to store food is dehydrating. It's so easy and can make such tasty snacks. I hate to admit, we're not so good as using up the dehydrated stuff either.
The more I write this the worse it sounds. Can you relate? Are you one who stores for a future that never comes. I will continue to use these methods but I have to do so with a plan in mind. Currently, we freeze meat in meal oriented freezer bags. I keep them in the front of the freezer so they are used up each month. It may seem counter-intuative to use what you have and not have much carry-over month to month but the truth is if you don't use it, you won't. There are some things I keep for sporadic use such as special flavorings or flours. However, nothing lasts forever and if my food goes bad then it was a waste to buy it in the first place.
My original plan with this post was to talk about the techniques for preserving and I will some day in the future come back to this but I think it's more important to think about what is already stored before adding to it. Only replace that which is almost gone (or already gone) this year and work to use up everything else.