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Home Food Preservation – 10 Ways to Preserve Food at Home

April 11, 2019 By Laurie Neverman 49 Comments

There's never better a better time to learn how to safely preserve food at home. Home food preservation helps you stock up and save money, whether you're growing your own food or buying in bulk. It adds variety to meals, and the flavor of home preserved foods can knock the socks off of most commercial offerings. You control what's in your food.

This post will give you an overview of different home food preservation methods, so you can decide which options work best for you. [Read more…] about Home Food Preservation – 10 Ways to Preserve Food at Home

9 Ways to Preserve Pears, Plus Tips to Prevent Browning

August 29, 2018 By Laurie Neverman 14 Comments

Our neighbors have a beautiful pear tree that's over 50 years old, and each year they invite us to share in the harvest. Big tree = many, many pears, so over the years I've used many different ways to preserve pears. No matter how you store them – canning, freezing, drying, freeze drying or fermenting – their high sugar content makes them a naturally decadent dessert. In this post I'll cover both short term and long term storage options for pears, plus tips to prevent browning.

Harvest Right Freeze Dryer Oil Change and Filtering

August 25, 2018 By Laurie Neverman 17 Comments

Ever since I posted my Harvest Right Freeze Dryer Review, people have asked for more information about the freeze dryer oil change and filtering. It's a simple process, but not something that's required for other home food preservation methods. To show those who are curious exactly what's involved, my sons help me put together a couple quick videos. The first one covers the freeze dryer oil change, and the second covers how to make an inexpensive oil filter.

Harvest Right Freeze Dryer – Cost Analysis and Optimizing Load Size

June 23, 2018 By Guest 20 Comments

Exactly how does a Harvest Right Freeze Dryer work, and what's the most efficient way to freeze dry food at home? In this post, I share a review of how the Harvest Right Freeze Dryer works, breaking out the electricity use for each phase of the freeze drying cycle. Then we look at the electricity cost per load, and moisture content of different foods. I wrap up with my suggestions for optimizing load size in your Harvest Right Freeze Dryer.

How to Store Strawberries 12 Ways – Plus Tips to Keep Berries Fresh

June 2, 2018 By Laurie Neverman 23 Comments

How to Store Strawberries for Fresh Eating or Year Round Use

Perfectly ripe strawberries are yummy, but strawberries also top the “Dirty Dozen” list for highest amounts of pesticide residue. We're lucky enough to have an organic strawberry farm nearby that uses no pesticides, so when strawberry season comes around, we stock up! In this post, I'll share how to store strawberries 12 different ways, plus how to keep strawberries fresh. We cover freezing, dehydrating, homemade fruit leather, strawberry kombucha, freeze drying, strawberry jam (regular and low sugar), and strawberry wine and mead.