Can or freeze?

[gunwhatgun]

How do you guys store your garden stock for the winter? Do you like to can? like to freeze? One style for some stuff and one style for other stuff? I took inspiration for the other thread and learned to make pickle and canned some jam. I also tried canning some squash and also put some up with the food saver. The food saver did not seem to like the amount of water left in the squash after the blanching though so I am wondering if canning is not better.

[Randall53]

One word for squash....squash PICKLES.....I could eat my weight in those things and they are easy to make.  I have a recipe if you're interested.  I either make squash pickles or fry it fresh.

[Guest Bonedaddy]

I'd freeze the squash, zuchinni or okra but I like 'bout everything else canned, 'specially peas/beans. The squash/okra I go on and cut up to however I like it before freezin' and if some will be breaded and fried, later, I go on and bread them and freeze the pieces on a cookie sheet or somethin' where they're mostly not touchin' till frozen then bag'm up. I just use the vac for meats, mostly.

[gunwhatgun]

Huh both of those sound cool. I have never heard of squash pickles. I have also not heard of pre-breading then freezing.

[Guest Bonedaddy]

Wadda think the food companies do with the frozen veggies ya buy at the store? Gotta freeze'm seperate so they don't stick together and you can pull out as much as you want without messin'm up. Wish I had a simple way to flash freeze like they do, though, just to make it faster.

[Guest 6.8 AR]

Depends on what you are storing for. If you are storing for a bad situation, like having no electricity and water,

then you better be canning and not freezing.

[gunwhatgun]

Wadda think the food companies do with the frozen veggies ya buy at the store? Gotta freeze'm seperate so they don't stick together and you can pull out as much as you want without messin'm up. Wish I had a simple way to flash freeze like they do, though, just to make it faster.

Well you could use dry ice. It would flash freeze the veggies much quicker than the freezer. Just but a couple or three one pound blacks in a cooler and your good to go.

 

 

Depends on what you are storing for. If you are storing for a bad situation, like having no electricity and water,

then you better be canning and not freezing.

Just for use over the winter so we can have stuff from the garden rather than God knows what from a tin can that has been cooked and processed to the point it has no nutrients left.

[UncleJak]

We've froze squash and corn. Canned anything else. I recommend butcher paper to freeze in.

sent barefoot from the hills of Tennessee

[Guest Bonedaddy]

Well you could use dry ice. It would flash freeze the veggies much quicker than the freezer. Just but a couple or three one pound blacks in a cooler and your good to go.

 

 

Just for use over the winter so we can have stuff from the garden rather than God knows what from a tin can that has been cooked and processed to the point it has no nutrients left.

Thought 'bout that but I don't think it can be had 'round here, anymore. Used to could get it but not these days. Need a small cryogenic freezer. Well, not really. I think I'm gonna give up gardenin'. Just gettin' to be too much trouble for me and besides, the ground sucks where we've moved to, now.

[Mark A]

Our Publix carries dry ice...

It is a good way to flash freeze veggies.

We freeze squash and zucchini and a few berries to keep for smoothies and such. Also blanch, peel, and freeze tomatoes that will be used in making sauce or salsa. We don't have enough tomato plants to get a whole bunch at once so we freeze in small lots until we get enough saved up for a big batch.

Everything else gets canned.

Mark

[enfield]

I can beans and corn.  Tomatoes are equally good canned or frozen, but I usually have the freezers crammed with beef.

[BJB]

We can everything. Just finished canning a whole hog (except the tenderloin) and will be putting up 5 rows of peanut beans this week.

[peejman]

We freeze stuff, but that's mostly because we haven't had a large enough quantity to justify canning.

 

As for the liquid problem with the food saver... I pre-freeze stuff with lots of liquid, then vacuum seal it.  Not perfect, but seems to work reasonably well. 

[Guest 6.8 AR]

We have freezers packed and hundreds of cans
of meat, fruits and vegetables. Also bunches of
dehydrated stuff.

[Caster]

I do both. I freeze what I plan to eat within the next 8-12 months.

I can what I want to keep for the next 3-4 years.

[Jonnin]

long term: dehydrated for veggies.  canned for meat. 

short term: frozen for either works. 

 

Freezing 'wet' veggies makes the water expand which mushes them badly.   Dehydration makes them a little off as well but I prefer that to mush.  Canned is awesome but it takes up the most space and a lot of time and energy to do it.  

Edited July 15, 2013 by Jonnin

[kckndrgn]

An idea for flash freezing, if you don't have access to dry ice.  Spread the food out in a single layer on a cookie sheet, then put that in your deep freezer.  I've done this when I didn't have enough to justify going to Kroger to get some dry ice.

 

Since my garden isn't big enough to get a lot to can from, I supplement by going to the farmers market.  Picked up 138lbs of tomatoes for $32.00 - i now have 13 qts and 11 pints of tomato sauce (11 pints are pee-seasoned).

 

We also get items from a CSA, not enough each week to can/preserve so we just freeze and build up the supply.

[whitewolf001]

I'd can unless you have a solar panel system setup I don't know about, this is keeping a TEOTWAKI in mind.

[Jamie Jackson]

How do you guys store your garden stock for the winter? Do you like to can? like to freeze? One style for some stuff and one style for other stuff? I took inspiration for the other thread and learned to make pickle and canned some jam. I also tried canning some squash and also put some up with the food saver. The food saver did not seem to like the amount of water left in the squash after the blanching though so I am wondering if canning is not better.

 

 

Good questions and Good for you on starting to can. :up:

 

We do both...canning and freezing. But the majority of our freezing is essentially transitional in nature.

 

We have 2 chest freezers, one for meat and one for vegetables and general frozen foods we might purchase in bulk.

 

 

Our usual practice is to pick, blanch, then freeze vegetables (like green beans) until there is enough to make a couple of pressure canner runs.

Our pressure canner is an [url=http://www.allamericancanner.com/allamerican930pressurecanner.htm] All American 930[/url]. It can process 19 pints or 14 quarts...that's a good bit of green beans. :cool:

 

We pressure can about 1/4th of our meat purchases and will vac seal those meats we plan to keep in the freezer. The vac sealing for freezing works great. We recently cooked a few pork loin roasts we put in the freezer in the spring of 2012 and they looked as fresh as when we put them in the freezer.

 

 

I've experienced the same issue when vac sealing high water content foods. We learned to just freeze them first in ziplock bags, then they vac seal without any issue.

 

 

Best of luck to you.

And welcome to a new addiction.   :pleased:

[whitewolf001]

We've froze squash and corn. Canned anything else. I recommend butcher paper to freeze in.

sent barefoot from the hills of Tennessee

Hey, can you pm me some info on canning. I'm wanting to start this and am totally in the dark sir.

[peejman]

Speaking of freezing, nearly a disaster at the house today.  Seems my oldest son did something in the garage yesterday that tripped the GFI.  My wife got something out of the freezer at lunch and noticed that stuff on top didn't seem real cold.  Once she figured out it was the GFI, she reset it and the freezer appears to be working fine. 

 

I have been fairly thoughtful with regard to what's on top and what's on the bottom in the freezer, so nothing thawed that can't be re-frozen.  Sometimes its several days between us getting into it, so that could've been very ugly. 

 

 

 

Hey, can you pm me some info on canning. I'm wanting to start this and am totally in the dark sir.

 

http://www.motherearthnews.com/real-food/canning.aspx#axzz2Z8TYtJgm

[whitewolf001]

Thank ye. :usa:

[Jamie Jackson]

Good resource peejman.

 

 

Another site I've used is :

 

http://nchfp.uga.edu/how/can4_vegetable.html

 

http://nchfp.uga.edu/how/can5_meat.html

 

http://nchfp.uga.edu/how/can6b_pickle.html

 

http://nchfp.uga.edu/how/can7_jam_jelly.html

 

 

If I can do it...anybody can do it. :pleased:

[gunwhatgun]

An idea for flash freezing, if you don't have access to dry ice.  Spread the food out in a single layer on a cookie sheet, then put that in your deep freezer.  I've done this when I didn't have enough to justify going to Kroger to get some dry ice.

 

Since my garden isn't big enough to get a lot to can from, I supplement by going to the farmers market.  Picked up 138lbs of tomatoes for $32.00 - i now have 13 qts and 11 pints of tomato sauce (11 pints are pee-seasoned).

 

We also get items from a CSA, not enough each week to can/preserve so we just freeze and build up the supply.

Pee seasoned.......really? I would have gone a different way with the flavoring :rofl:

[JWC]

Pee mmm!

Technically there isn't safe guidelines for canning squash if you go by recent published info. So I freeze squash. I like canning stuff though. Then i can fill the freezer with critter meat.