Over the last few weeks we’ve been doing a lot of work on the backend of the website as well as working on bringing some significant changes to our website.  We leaked the news of the first of the changes last night and I’m pleased to rollout a bunch of enhancements that we hope you’ll like this evening.

There will be some more changes in coming weeks – some of them will be small tweaks while others will take us in completely new formats (the overall message and philosophy of WellPreserved will remain unchanged).  Our sole focus with these changes is to make the site more usable, accessible and enjoyable for our community.

New Features on WellPreserved

1. The SEARCH function has returned.  That’s it up in the top right!
2. RSS readers are supported once again (don’t worry about that if you have no idea what that means).  It’s under the search bar.
3. 100% of content is back into categories (I had fallen slightly off the wagon with that one)
4. An interactive breadcrumb trail now exists.  You’ll see it just above the title of this post at the top.  You can easily find other related posts by clicking items in the breadcrumb (it’s like a table of contents).  This is really handy for recipes and our preserving posts.  If you’re reading about fermenting Sauerkraut, the breadcrumbs will allow you to click and see all our fermenting recipes without having to search! (You can check that out on our Sauerkraut post)
5. Our site has been sped up (though it may seem a bit slower in the first 24 hours).
6. The bottom of each post (including past ones) will suggest other related articles.  So if you look at our Mache salad recipe from earlier in the week, you’ll notice it now has 4 links on the bottom – all related to salad or salad dressing posts.
7. We’re updating some of the post descriptions (and all going forward) so that sharing them on Social Media will give better descriptions of why you’re sharing it (in the past it often shared the first sentence of the article which didn’t give your network a good idea of why you were sharing it).
8. We’ve shortened the web addresses of all articles to make it easier to link (and make links more readable).  And old links will still work so no need to change the past!
9. We’ve added some more backend gobblygook to help make things more findable as well as faster.

This article at Windmill Networking was a big help to us discovering some of the tools above.

Let us know your feedback – and any ideas for other improvements that you’d like to see!

Greetings all!  Happy Tuesday!

We’re doing some updates to the site tonight – amongst them you’ll notice that we’ve installed a search function up there in the top-right!  Hope it helps!

Let us know other enhancements you’d like to see and we’ll do our best!

On December 27th, 2008 our families left our house after the Christmas Holidays.  We had a quiet evening before collapsing into bed.  It had been a frantic few days full of great family time, great meals and lots of laughs.

I went to bed that evening, content and exhausted.  I had no idea that our life would change forever before I woke again.

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Welcome to Day 4 of our Top ’10′ lists of 2012!

So far we’ve covered:

• The overall most popular posts of 2012
• Top 14 Posts of 2012 in 2012
• Top 14 Posts of 2011 in 2012

Today we cover the top 11 posts written in 2010 that were visited in 2012:

11. What to do with dehydrated beets and celery root March 14, 2010.  We still use the beet powder made in this post (not the same recipe; the same powder) and make celery salt/ powder at least once a year.  These are keepers in our kitchen!
10. How long do preserves keep? November 15, 2010. This is one of my all-time favourite posts to revisit.  In addition to providing information, we took a user poll – more than 2 years later it still receives the occasional vote.
9. Canning Peaches in Several Forms – Preserving Summer July 7, 2010. Preserved peaches are one of my favourite winter treats – they simply take the taste of the sun into the cold of the snow.
8. A Guide to our best Tomato Preserving (Canning) Posts August 17, 2010. We’ve added several tomato posts since 2010 but this still includes the fundamentals of how we preserve 160+ jars of sauce in a day with 4 of us.  Tomato sauce is largely what changed our kitchen and put us on the preserving path.
7. Using Brown Sugar and Honey to make Jam June 4, 2010. We still use thee rations, largely based on the updated Joy of Cooking.
6. How to Dehydrate Hot Peppers September 13, 2010. Dehydration is a big part of our kitchen – we don’t write about it as much as we used to because there’s little change in what we do from one year to the next.
5. Preserving Autumn – Spicy Pickled Carrots September 20, 2010. These are still some of Dana’s faves; I love that this recipe started with a giant mistake (as explained in the post; I put the amount of chilli the original recipe called to be divided into 4 jars into 1).
4. Preserving Spring – Wild Leeks (or ramps) April 1, 2010. I love ramps; life kept us away from harvesting any this year but we still have some pickled ramps from years gone by in the pantry.
3. Infusing Vodka with Hot Peppers (Preserving Summer) July 6, 2010. This is amazing for Bloody Mary’s/ Caesars.
2. Dehydrated Orange Slices January 10, 2010. We buy oranges/ mandarins one time a year: Christmas holidays.  This is a great use of the leftovers!

And from our top posts of 2012, the highest ranking post from 2010 in 2012 was:

1. Thinking of buying a pressure canner? May 25, 2010.  I am happy this post received a lot of views – more and more people are expanding their preserving repertoire and pressure canning has definitely increased this year.

We’ve  been doing some round-up posts this week summarizing some of the most popular posts in 2012.  So far we’ve covered the Top 10 Posts of 2012 as well as the Top 10 posts written in 2012 for 2012.  Today we’re looking at the Top 14 posts from 2011 as judged by their traffic in 2012.

The bottom 4 were previously named in the top 10 list for the year.

14.  How to Make Rumtopf (the 2011 Batch Arrives along with Redtopf) August 28, 2011. Rumtopf is an annual tradition for us and is an annual tradition with our Christmas meal.  We still have some of the ‘redtopf’ described in this article and it’s as wonderful today as it was back then.
13.  Herbes Salées (Salt Herb Preserve) – Recipe and How-To August 22, 2011. This is now a must-make recipe every year.  We still have 2 quarts of them in the fridge including a small portion from this batch in 2011 (imagine ‘fresh’ herbs lasting a year-and-a-half!)
12. Polenta: the Easiest Thing I never Made  January 23, 2011. We’re on quite the roll – polenta is a go-to staple in our kitchen now.  If you’ve never made it, you simply must.  You’ll never buy a tube of it again!
11. Wild Blueberry Maple Jam / Preserve / Syrup August 22, 2011.  The streak continues.  This is probably the best jam we’ve ever made and I made it for years before sharing it here.  If we competed with our jams, this is what I would enter (although I’d be penalized for it’s slightly loose consistency).  I wouldn’t change it.
10. How to make Candied Bacon Jerky (Recipe)  November 19, 2011. The streak is over.  This was remarkably neat but the smell of bacon dehydrating in our apartment for 72 hours was a little much to take (especially for Dana who works from home and our hunting dog who loves meat of any kind).  The smell was so penetrating that my love for bacon has been slightly lowered.
9. How to Make Raisins (Dehydrate Grapes)  May 4, 2011. This was the second or third time trying to make raisins – and this time was the charm!  They are so much sweeter than the commercial ones.
8.  Dehydrated Spicy BBQ Sweet Potato Chips January 17, 2011. I really need to make these again – this is the absolute best form of cheating I’ve ever done with food.  These were simply fantastic and had the ‘real authentic’ taste of commercial potato chips (irony intended).
7. Fermented Hot Peppers and Fermented Hot Sauce Recipe  December 2, 2011. I often think that strawberries and tomatoes are the gateway ‘drug’ to waterbath preserving.  Hot peppers are the same for fermenting.  Fermenting is easy, quick and delicious!
6. Air Locks for Mason Jars – My Fermenting will Reach New Heights  June 17, 2011. We use these airlocks a lot.  They allow for small-batch fermenting and virtually eliminate mould.  They’ve been fabulous.
5. Naturally Pickled (Fermented) Jalapeno Peppers  August 18, 2011. Hot peppers are popular once again – I’m not the only one who adores them!

The following also appeared on the all-time top 10 posts for 2012 and are repeated here:

4. Dehydrated Watermelon and Dehydrated Cantaloupe August 31, 2011.  This remains one of the more interesting things we’ve made with the dehydrator – but it’s not my favorite.  I like the end results but find them very, very sweet.  I have met a lot of children who disagree with me and really like them.
3. How to Make Ginger Beer (Fermentation Recipe) November 30, 2011.  I adore everything about ginger beer.  This recipe is pure love and a great intro to fermenting.
2. Banana Chips – How to Dehydrate Bananas May 9, 2011.  I feel odd that this recipe is so popular – while we aren’t 100% local, the exceptions that come into our kitchen are items I consider near-essential such as olive oil, lemon, pepper and coffee.  Although these banana chips are good (we still have some in our pantry from 2011), we haven’t bought a banana since.
1. Possibly the Best Homemade Calzone Recipe (Technique) Ever May 11, 2011.  The popularity of this post always astounds me; we still use this recipe and technique when baking calzone (and it really does keep the crust non-soggy).

As a way to wind-down the year, we’re sharing several top 10 lists over the next few days.  They’re a lot of fun to write and a great way to visit some old posts as we’ll have some more downtime over the next week or so than we normally get.

Yesterday’s list was the top 10 visited posts on 2012 on WellPreserved.  The list included posts from all 4 years of our existence; todays list covers the top new posts from 2012.  This list includes 4 from our all time list yesterday (the top 4 choices) so we’ve decided to post 14 in order to include 10 additional posts.

14. Summer Preserving Recommendations July 31, 2012. Similar to this post;  the preserving reccos were a round-up of previous posts and links to recipes from our past.
13. Waterbath Canning? The Two Keys to Safety September 20, 2012. This post raised some controversy.  While there are many things one needs to do to be safe, I maintain that if you follow these two behaviours, you won’t have to worry about the knowledge (as each of these sources will include it). Confession of a geek: I have a background in training and this debate is nothing new to me; some people believe in training knowledge while others train behaviour.  In most circumstances, one will build the other.
12. Fermented Hot Sauce – The 2012 Version September 9, 2012. Fermenting was popular this year and I’m happy that this post was read a lot.  We still have more than 4 quarts of this sauce in the fridge and use it for everything!
11. How to Cook Scallops March 30, 2012. Despite the photos causing some people to tell me they were overcooked, this technique is an amazing one that simply must be tried as the results are amazing (pre brining scallops).
10. How to Make Fermented Mustard (Recipe) April 14, 2012. This was a bit of an oddball recipe but one that we continue to make (there’s a jar fermenting ou our counter right now).  It is so much more interesting than any store-bought mustard I’ve ever had.
9. How to Make the Perfect Poached Egg (Without Vinegar) March 17, 2012. Poaching eggs are one of the things I finally learned how to do this year after years of on-again and off-again success.  It’s actually far easier than I thought.
8. It’s Tomato Sauce Preparation Day! August 26, 2012. This post is a bit of a tradition around here – every year we go up to my parents house and make 8-10 bushels of sauce.  And every year I start the day very early in the morning with a post to mark the date.  I also use these posts in future years so I can know the dates we canned sauce for years to come.  Here’s the one from September 9, 2011, August 23, 2010 and September 5, 2009).
7. More Fermented Hot Sauce (and a few tricks) September 22, 2012. Odd fact: the hot sauce in those pictures is still fermenting on our counter.
6. Fermented Honey Garlic Pickles August 20, 2012. Although I’m happy with this recipe, I’m convinced we can make this even better.  They were good – I think they can be even better!
5.Yes WHEY! A Bunch of Uses For Extra Whey April 5, 2012. I used to think of whey as a bi-product – now I’m generally more excited bout the whey than the thing I got it from!

The following were on yesterday’s list as well:

4. How to Strain Yogurt (i.e. Make Greek Yogurt) April 4, 2012.  The popularity of this article is largely due to a trickle-down effect from Marisa of Food in Jars.  She had an amazing post on homemade yogurt (made in mason jars) that linked to this post.  Her post received a lot of deserved attention and her link helped us out a lot.  Thanks Marisa!
3. Different Types of Fermentation: The Difference Between Wild Fermentation and Lactofermentation March 21, 2012.  Speaking of expanding techniques, fermenting is definitely on the rise.  I struggled with this terminology for a long time and had misunderstood the terms for several years before learning the differences.
2. Possibly the Best Homemade Gnocchi (Recipe) February 4, 2012.  I love that this post received the attention it did – it was written on my Mother’s birthday!  I’m also a big fan of gnocchi; and this recipe is a go-to in my house.
1. Possibly the Best Lactofermented Hot Sauce (with Whey) April 18, 2012. I am a hot sauce junkie and adore fermenting these days too (we always have something bubbling away in the house).  Using whey was a new addition for us this year and it’s one I really love.

Cheers to 2012!

Greetings all!

Today’s post is a listing of the most popular articles on our site from the last year.  This list comprises posts from the last 4 years and lists the popularity from least-to-most popular in 2012.

10. How to Strain Yogurt (i.e. Make Greek Yogurt) April 4, 2012.  The popularity of this article is largely due to a trickle-down effect from Marisa of Food in Jars.  She had an amazing post on homemade yogurt (made in mason jars) that linked to this post.  Her post received a lot of deserved attention and her link helped us out a lot.  Thanks Marisa!
9. Thinking of buying a pressure canner? May 25, 2010.  I am happy this post received a lot of views – more and more people are expanding their preserving repertoire and pressure canning has definitely increased this year.
8. Different Types of Fermentation: The Difference Between Wild Fermentation and Lactofermentation March 21, 2012.  Speaking of expanding techniques, fermenting is definitely on the rise.  I struggled with this terminology for a long time and had misunderstood the terms for several years before learning the differences.
7. Dehydrated Watermelon and Dehydrated Cantaloupe August 31, 2011.  This remains one of the more interesting things we’ve made with the dehydrator – but it’s not my favorite.  I like the end results but find them very, very sweet.  I have met a lot of children who disagree with me and really like them.
6. Possibly the Best Homemade Gnocchi (Recipe) February 4, 2012.  I love that this post received the attention it did – it was written on my Mother’s birthday!  I’m also a big fan of gnocchi; and this recipe is a go-to in my house.
5. Canning tomato sauce – time to jar, Tomato September 13, 2009.  The only post from 2009 – which is ironic because many of the better articles I’ve written were near the beginning of this project when I was writing about things I had studied or experimented with for years; I quickly ran out of any ‘legacy’ knowledge and most posts these days are on newer experiments (which presents other benefits).
4. Possibly the Best Lactofermented Hot Sauce (with Whey) April 18, 2012. I am a hot sauce junkie and adore fermenting these days too (we always have something bubbling away in the house).  Using whey was a new addition for us this year and it’s one I really love.
3. How to Make Ginger Beer (Fermentation Recipe) November 30, 2011.  I adore everything about ginger beer.  This recipe is pure love and a great intro to fermenting.
2. Banana Chips – How to Dehydrate Bananas May 9, 2011.  I feel odd that this recipe is so popular – while we aren’t 100% local, the exceptions that come into our kitchen are items I consider near-essential such as olive oil, lemon, pepper and coffee.  Although these banana chips are good (we still have some in our pantry from 2011), we haven’t bought a banana since.
1. Possibly the Best Homemade Calzone Recipe (Technique) Ever May 11, 2011.  The popularity of this post always astounds me; we still use this recipe and technique when baking calzone (and it really does keep the crust non-soggy).

It is a bizarre coincidence that the two most popular posts were published two days apart!

What types of posts would you like to see?

Seasons greetings all!

We’re pleased to share our first ever sale in our on-line store!  From now until tomorrow evening (Sunday, December 8 at 8:00 PM EST), we’re selling our Periodic Table of Waterbath Preserving at 2-for-1 pricing.  Order one and we’ll ship you two (or order two and we’ll ship you four, etc…)

The table originally appeared in the Spring Edition of Edible Toronto in May, 2011.  There are 58 items on the chart (all were hand-drawn by Dana) and each contains the name, a made-up element symbol (my faves are the ones for Hot Peppers and Brut), approximate season, sample preserve and up to 8 different preserving styles that can be used for each item.  Each item is loosely grouped in one of four sections so that you can find what you are looking for easily.

The sale applies only to the periodic table posters in our store.  We’ll ship all orders on Tuesday which should get them to you before the Holiday Season as long as the good people at the post office do their bit (and they generally do).

Best of whichever season you celebrate (or don’t) to you!

**CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE STORE**

We’re excited to share that WellPreserved hit a milestone this weekend – our 1,000,000th pageview.

I feel odd publicly celebrating milestones like this; but I think it’s important to celebrate them as they are truly an accomplishment of the community and not something ‘owned’ by us.

1,000,000 visits is meager compared to many of the ‘big sites’ in the world but its way beyond anything we could have imagined when we started writing in December, 2008.  Both of us were blown away when we received almost 900 visits in our first month and it’s been a steady climb ever since.

We have a few other milestones coming up soon (namely our fourth anniversary in December and, assuming things continue without a hitch, our 1,500th consecutive day of posting in February) but wanted to take a few minutes to share a virtual high-five with each of you that visit the site, share the links, attend events or have purchased posters or prints.

There have been two major rewards from this project (with many others):

1. Meeting a community of people (digitally and in real life) of people excited about food, cooking with whole ingredients and preserving food.
2. The learning that has come through sharing a new post every day.  Writing about food has forced us to learn new techniques, recipes and a new consciousness about what we eat – every day.

Thanks for your support – we’d love your feedback and ideas on what you’d like to see in the future from us and how we can improve what we do (or what we should do more of)…

The contest details are after the break…

October is the busiest time of year for me.  Work is at it’s most hectic, our preserving projects are coming to a close, hunting is nearby and time to write is scarce.  By the end of October things settle down in almost every element of our lives!

In order to make October a little easier, I was hoping I could get 30 seconds of help from you…

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