This time of year it’s all about eating fresh in season food and trying to figure out the best way to preserve some of it for winter. I’m trying to work on growing more fresh food during the winter months, but until I get everything figured out I’m still canning/freezing/drying fruit and veggies. My sister has two HUGE cherry trees on a plot of land she rents for a garden. There were way more cherries than they needed, so she asked if we wanted some. Never being one to turn up free food, we went out last week and picked and picked, and then picked some more. It’s hard to let anything go to waste.
With mountains of cherries, I had to figure out what exactly I wanted to do with them. Since I haven’t been preserving for a long time, I like to try different methods to see which one we like best. I also didn’t have a ton of time to work on them since we had other things going on. I decided to dehydrate as many as I could and make maraschino cherries out of a few as well (we picked ones with stems just for this purpose).
I ended up running out of time pitting for drying and freezing, so I brined 4 and half gallons for canning whole. A few of them will be preserved with brandy to give away to friends, most of them will be canned whole with the stems for making chocolate covered cherries at Christmas time. I’m excited to try the canned ones to see how we like them.
I really want to have Mr Chiots build me a solar dehydrator. That way I can preserve food without using much energy at all. Dehydrating is also very nice because it doesn’t require any refrigeration for long-term storage. I also love it because it doesn’t require, jars, lids, boiling, cooking, so it saves time. Dehydrating will be my method of preservation I chose above all this year.
Do you try preserving with different methods to find which one works best for you?
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I canned 9 pints of strawberry jam just this morning.
I have never tried dehydrating anything but jerky.. will definitely put fruits and veggies on that list.
I actually enjoy the whole canning process.. its like therapy for me… and it always brings back such happy memories of my mother, (whom I lost this past October).
I dehydrate fruits, vegetables and meat (jerky). The dehydrator works very well when making fruit leather, storing zucchini, fruit to snack on, etc. With fruit and vegetables I make sure to set the temperature around 115 so I don’t destroy any nutrients.
I actually love to can. The accomplishment feels so good and I love the way the jars look on the pantry shelf, all those different colors. Wish I had the time to do more.
I freeze as well, but only those fruits and vegetables that we prefer to eat that way, freezer space gets used up quickly when our family butchers meat in the fall.
I find that dehydrating in the sun here doesn’t always do so well because the air here in the woods is just too humid. But I am curious about what you did to your cherries. Brining them? Can you elaborate? thanks.
Yes, I put links for both recipes on my blog here: http://chiotsrun.com/2010/06/22/the-first-canning-of-the-year/
I love dehydrating fruits and some veggies. I also can even just small batches, when I can fit it in.
Last year I made “pie kits” with the extra strawberries. I just put the ingredients for the pie filling in freezer bags and froze them. During the winter i only needed to make the crust then poured in the thawed pie filling.
I am so envious of your haul.
We have a long tradition with canning, however I am not too fond of it (my husband’s side of the family adds oodles of sugar which drives me mental, and my dh will not have his canned fruit any other way). So we concentrate on excess cherries and mirabelle (which is a small yellow plum), excess apples (although we tend not to have too much of those) and pears.
I started dehydrating about two years ago: I LOVE it. Oh my. Herbs, sea salt and halved tomatoes… I have sworn off store bought tomatoes because I wont have them any other way except fresh from the garden or preserved. I also combine them with zucchini and puree that, usually tossing in some herbs from the garden and then making that into a savory leather… delicious way to thicken stewed tomatoes in the winter for sauces and soups. (My mouth is watering!)
We also dehydrate cranberries, currants, carrots, zucchini, cherries, apples… pretty much anything, actually.
If I am dehydrating a fruit, I like to make it at least 50% vegetable (zucchini or pumpkin) to reduce the natural sugar levels and add some diversity in the vitamins.
And we freeze all sorts of stuff. Cherries even with the pits still in them!
We are experimenting with drying beans (not much luck last year… but trying again this year), so hopefully we have an abundance of dry staples for the winter.
Now you have me all hungry… what a great time of year.
I would like to try my hand at dehydrating this year. I have been gathering cherries as often as possible and would like to dry them for my granola. Would you mind sharing your dehydrator settings (temp and time) for cherries? Thanks!
Kendi
Oh sure, I set my dehydrator at 130. Sometimes I put it in the warm attic and then I keep the temp a little lower, around 110. They dry much quicker with the warm dry air up there.
Thanks so much! Also, do you have any recommendations for a dehydrator? I borrow my neighbors from time to time, but would like to purchase my own. There are so many models, and I’m having a hard time distinguishing between any differences.
Thanks again!
I’m also borrowing a friend’s dehydrator at the moment. It’s this one: Nesco FD-75PR 700-Watt Food Dehydrator
it’s a cheap one, and I notice that it doesn’t dry things evenly. It only costs $50 though, so I think this is why our friends own it. If you don’t want to spend a lot it’s a decent little drying, not a huge capacity.
I’m planning on buying an Excalibur Dehydrator soon since I love drying things. I’ve heard from many friends that it’s really great. It comes in different sizes with different prices, I think this size – 9 trays would be just about right. I love the squareness of it as well, seems like it would be more space efficient. Excalibur 2900 Economy Series 9 Tray Food Dehydrator – Black