Monday, October 3, 2011

Putting up

I wanted to document what I put up so far this year. I think a lot of people are into canning, but putting up is a little different. If you change your mindset from preserving to surviving then you are putting up. It is really thinking about taking the summer bounty and putting it away for winter. Not just via canning, but also freezing, cold storing, drying, etc. The idea isn't to supplement what you buy at the grocery store or the big box store, but to feed you through the winter with the grocery store supplementing your pantry. Now don't get me wrong I am not feeding my family with what I put up, but I am definitely trying to move in that direction. So far we haven't bought tomato products, pickles, jams, kimchi, or sauerkraut at the store in at least three years. I have been reading sharon astyk's blog for about 6 years and I get a lot of inspiration in how to live with low impact. I really wish more people would start looking at their freezers, cupboards, and cool garages as places to store local food that they themselves can, freeze, buy in bulk, etc. Just this little step saves so much in terms of food miles. As they say, think global, eat local. I know so cliche, but I had to.

So here are my canned pickles, jams, fruit, tomatoes, and harissa; my frozen stock and applesauce; and my lacto-fermented kimchi and sauerkraut. This doesn't include the 4 quart bags of frozen blueberries from spring, the 4 pint bags of frozen squash blossoms from our garden for soup, the half bushel of frozen roasted chiles separated into 8 ziploc bags for using until next summer, the seven jars of jam already eaten, the 4 jars of jams given away as gifts, the two pints of pickled peppers I made this week, the 20lbs of tomatoes I am planning to can still, or anything else I am going to put up in the next month and a half left of the farmers market and our CSA.
 
I like painters tape since it doesn't leave sticky residue
From the side with the husband