We were cooking dinner tonight; a simple polenta dish for an evening meal.  I wasn’t really paying much attention as I blissfully cooked guided by my subconscious and absolute hunger.  When I was letting the polenta rest I noticed a few open jars on the counter: dried wild leeks, chili salt, mushroom powder, and dried fermented chili seeds all made it into dinner.  Cooking with the diverse ingredients in our pantry is so easy that I almost risk taking it for granted/ remember what to make in coming years.

So tonight’s post is simple: 7 preserves we made last year for the first time that we will make again this year.

All of these are great ingredients to cook with and add to almost any dish (from bread to sauce to to dry rubs to soup and everything in between):

• Chili Salt and Pickled Chili Salt
• Dried Wild Leek Leaves (these were from 2011 but we’re just starting to use them and they’re great!)
• Dried fermented hot pepper seeds
• Lactofermented hot sauce with whey
• Homemade Powdered Parmesan Cheese
• Fermented dried peppers (Morita in this case)
• Pickled Cherry Hot Peppers

What is something you made last year that you’ll definitely be making again?

I loved the idea/ question that inspired this post - what are projects that were the ‘gateway’ to preserving more and going beyond the basics?

Before I share a list, I should start with the ultimate ‘gateway’: repetition and experience.  Learning to preserve is an easy skill and it’s almost unbeleivable that once you’ve made a few batches of preserves that most people know most everything they’ll ever need to preserve safely and happily for the rest of their lives.  Things don’t get a whole lot tougher than water bath canning jam; the real gateways (in my opinion) are confidence, learning basic techniques and then learning to use what you’ve made in many different ways (i.e. jam doesn’t have to be a condiment only – we’ll share a post on Wednesday about that very topic).

Here are 5 of our gateway projects:

1. Strawberry jam.  It was important because I learned I could make what my Grandmother and my parents had for years.  And it tasted good!  And it was easy!
2. Herbes Salees.  It allowed me to use fresh herbs (many from our garden) for more than a year and connected me with food of my heritage and has made me curious to learn more about the roots of preserving in my own (and other cultures).
3. Infused Booze and vinegar.  It showed me that you could make a micro batch (some of our infusions are 0.5 cup) and that preserving doesn’t have to be a giant process.
4. Tomatoes.  They are abundant, affordable, local and they brought preserved food from ‘the side of the plate’ (i.e. condiments) to the middle and showed me we could use preserving as part of a full diet.  I had watched my parents preserving them as a child and avoided the work.  They would later show me how preserving can be a family event and a fun event.  Dana and I preserve our tomatoes with my parents every year.
5. Mushroom Powder.  Taught me that preserving could emphasize a single ingredient and actually create ingredients for cooking through the winter.  The idea of making an ingredient was a turning point in how we preserve – and how we cook.

What would be on your list?

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If you’re looking for a recipe for ketchup, that will come tomorrow.  I wanted to take a step back and share our process when we preserve and how it fits into a busy schedule.  One of the most common reasons I hear from people who want to preserve (and don’t) is that they ‘don’t have the time.’  I was hoping this might help encourage busy people to give canning a go – as it becomes a comfortable skill it’s easy to can a batch of food while cooking dinner or doing other things.  We also include our tip on how to crush a large amount of tomatoes (in this case almost 30 pounds) in less than 3 minutes.

12:30PM Thursday, September 6
It’s late and it’s been a long day including a full evening of canning.  I’ve pulled 12 jars of canned tomatoes from the water bath as well as BBQ sauce and am waiting for the final small batch of tomato sauce to finish up.

I was reflecting on the amount of tomatoes we’ve processed this year (almost 10 bushels with 1.5 being done by hand).  And that’s when it hit me, “Sh*t!  I didn’t make any ketchup.”

I have a weakness for the stuff.  I’m pretty powerless against its sweet-umami-tangy goodness.  But I’d already put up more than 500 pounds of tomatoes this year.  I decided to go without it.  A man has to know his limits.

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I had planned to write about something different from this but dinner just changed everything.  I was happily plodding away on a tomato sauce to add to homemade polenta when I reached into the fridge, pulled out a jar I haven`t touched since August and cracked it open.  I dipped a spoon into it`s depths, tossed it`s contents into my sauce and gave it a stir.  I waited a moment and then had a taste.

Suddenly I was back in August.

Herbes Salées are standard kitchen fare in much of Maritime Canada.  I`ve cooked with commercially made salt herbs but never with the real deal.  Tonight was the first time I used our salt-cured herbs out of the fridge.  Like most things, homemade is in a league of it`s own.

The herbs pack all of the flavor (if not more) than they did in the summer.  Compared to plastic packages available in the modern grocery store – well, there is no comparison.  Their flavor has penetrated the salt and the small brine they`ve been stewing in (it`s not exactly liquid but the flavors have marinated).  When the salt and brine mixed with our sauce, the flavors of the fresh herbs exploded through the entire pot.

Making salted herbs can take as little as 10 minutes; we did 2 liters (almost a half-gallon) in about 30 minutes.

I was on a mission to get people to make these last years – and that was before the results.  If you haven`t made these before, you really need to put them on your to-do list for next year.  These will change our entire cuisine this winter.

What`s something that you make that you think others NEED to start making?