Using sound judgment to be more self-reliant.
These plum preserves are lightly sweetened with honey and spiced with cardamon. The flavor is good – tart and spicy – a bit like a chutney. We use the natural pectin in plums for gelling – no commercial pectin needed. Try it with poultry, stirred into yogurt, or drizzled over ice cream.
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The easiest plum jam is made with nothing but plums and sugar, but sometimes I enjoy mixing things up a little. This plum jam recipe has a small amount of commercial pectin, which lets you use less sugar, and speeds up cooking time. Try it as a topping for ice cream or cheesecake, on toast with butter or nut butter, or mixed into yogurt.
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Spicy pickled green beans are a recipe that bring back memories of growing up on the farm, like pickled beets. Vinegar pickles of all different types were common on the table, from the jewel red beets to the slippery pickled mushrooms. These pickled green beans with garlic and cayenne pepper are crunchy and spicy, and let you can green beans without a pressure canner.
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A vacuum sealer is one of those kitchen machines you don’t realize how much you’ll use – until you buy one. We use our vacuum sealer for food storage, sealing jars and bottles, corrosion protection, resealing bags and emergency preparedness. You can also use your vacuum sealer for sous vide cooking. In this post, we’ll discuss ways to use your sealer, do a comparison of Foodsaver models and their features, and share some tips on Foodsaver bags.
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Each year I preserve peaches in a variety of ways, stashing some for us to enjoy and some to use as gifts. (I have yet to find someone who does not appreciate homemade peach jam.) In this post I’ll cover the easiest way to peel peaches, as well as canning, dehydrating, freezing, peach jam and freeze drying peaches.
My youngest loves peaches, so we stock up every year. We’re still working on trying to get peach trees to survive as part of our permaculture food forest. We’re right at the edge of peach friendly territory, but our place gets a lot of wind, which the trees don’t like very much….
