Saving Summer One Jar At A Time
Imagine that it is The Cold Time, but that you are warm inside your home. When it comes time to cook, you look into your cabinets and see Summer: rosy jars of strawberry and raspberry jam, pasta sauce made with in-season tomatoes and your own savory herbs, bottles of marinades & herbal vinegars that would cost a small fortune in the stores, cordial and homebrew awaiting an occaision for a toast, crisp cornichons pickles, herbes de provence that you made from plants that grew in your garden or on your rooftop, herbal teas ready to chase the cold away, chutneys and herb butters and plenty to spare for gifts come the holidays...
But let's suppose you have a small city garden. Maybe just a windowsill. And the recipes in the food preserving books call for a quart of this, a bushel of that. Should you sigh, pop your four-strawberries-per morning harvest in your mouth and give it up until you win the lottery and that country home manifests? Absolutely not!
From just a windowsill herb garden you can freeze months worth of pesto and collect enough herbs to make your own seasonings, vinegars, and teas. Add a strawberry pot, and you've got jam. A few patio tomatoes can turn into a jar of your own sundried tomatoes for gourmet pasta dishes at a fraction of what they'd cost if you had to pay for them.
There is so much to say on this subject and, astonishingly, so little has been written on home preserving in small batches, that I think I'll have to turn this into a two or three part adventure. For starters, here are some home preserving techniques you can use even if you don't own a canner and your garden is limited to a windowsill or terrace...
Where To Get Your Ingredients
Berries, tomatoes, and peppers (both hot and sweet) can be frozen without blanching. What this means is that you can start dropping the occaisional strawberry from that hanging basket or hot pepper from a container grown plant into a freezer bag, and when the bag is full turn around and try one of the following recipes. It makes life easier if you trim away stems before freezing.
Herbs can be dried by hanging them in small bunches in a well-ventillated area away from light. If they aren't crispy-crumbly after a couple of weeks, pop them in a low (150 degree) oven with the door propped open for 10 minutes. Allow to cool slightly, then crumble the leaves off of the tough stems and store in glass jars away from light.
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