Food Preservation - Choosing a Method - Cabbage

Our ancestors devised many methods of preserving their harvest out of necessity.  They did not have the luxury of having fresh food shipped, sometimes thousands of miles, to the grocery nearest them.  Nor did they have freezers that would hold the food cold for months at a time (except in the coldest climates where it was kept in attics or outside).

Food Preservation includes many different methods:  Canning, Freezing, Dehydrating, Cooked and Frozen as meals, Smoking, and Fermenting to name a few.  When choosing a method or methods to use for a particular fruit or vegetable coming out of your garden or bought bulk at your local farmers market you have to decide how you are going to use this product and primarily how you prefer to eat it.  There is no sense dehydrating everything if you don't like reconstituted dried foods or canning if you hate, well canned peas for example.  Sometimes the way you use that particular food will dictate how you preserve it.

Today we are going to talk about cabbages, because cabbages happen to be something that I recently took out of my garden and need to preserve.  So, first I have to decide, how am I going to use this product?  

Why I Have a Pantry....Full

Some Food "Storage" for Thought ~ Pantry Series

photo source

Thoughts on Preparedness...

“Food security is not in the supermarket. It's not in the government. It's not at the emergency services division. True food security is the historical normalcy of packing it in during the abundant times, building that in-house larder, and resting easy knowing that our little ones are not dependent on next week's farmers' market or the electronic cashiers at the supermarket.”

~ Joel Salatin, Excerpt from

Folks, This Ain't Normal: A Farmer's Advice for Happier Hens,

Healthier People, and a Better World

"And let them gather all the food of those good years that come,

and lay up corn under the hand of Pharaoh, and let them keep food in the cities.

And that food shall be for store to the land against the seven years of famine,

which shall be in the land of Egypt; that the land perish not through the famine."

~ Genesis 41:35-36

"There be four things which are little upon the earth,

but they are exceeding wise:

The ants are a people not strong,

yet they prepare their meat in the summer…"

~ Proverbs 30:24-25

"Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise:

Which having no guide, overseer, or ruler,

Provideth her meat in the summer,

and gathereth her food in the harvest."

~ Proverbs 6:6-8

“It is not often that a man can make opportunities for himself.

But he can put himself in such shape that when or if the opportunities come he is ready.”
~ Theodore Roosevelt

“Prepare for the unknown by studying how others in the past

have coped with the unforeseeable and the unpredictable.”
~ Gen. George S. Patton

“By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.”
~ Benjamin Franklin

"The prudent see danger and take refuge,

but the simple keep going and pay the penalty."

~ Proverbs 22:3

Recommended Reading: 

Should a Christian Practice Food Storage?

Ten Reasons to Prepare a Pantry

Preventing Problems in Your Garden

The best way to prevent problems in  your garden is by building your soil to promote plant health.

Applying Compost

Whether you buy it of make your own, make a habit of adding compost to your soil often.  Here's how:

• Before planting, incorporate compost into the top inch or two of your veggie garden beds and places where you grow annual flowers.
• Use compost as mulch or side-dressing in all your garden beds during the garden season.
• Spread compost as a mulch over the root zone area of established trees and shrubs.
• Spread a 1/4 inch to 1/2 inch layer of fine compost over your lawn after aerating it.

from THE ORGANIC GARDENER'S HANDBOOK OF NATURAL PEST AND DISEASE CONTROL, a Rodale Organic Gardening Book, edited by Fern Marshall Bradley, Barbara Ellis and Deborah Martin.

Can You Grow Your Own?

With continual exposes showing manufacturers using foul ingredients in our food supply anywhere from cancer causing chemicals to pink slim in ground beef, glued steaks and now horse meat in ground beef in a famous fast food chain in Europe one has to wonder............



On top of all that food is becoming more and more expensive, prices are higher and packages are smaller.  This is going to date me buy how many of you remember how big of a Tootsie Roll you used to get for a penny?  That's just the tip of the ice berg.

I don't know about you but I don't care to eat all the additives, especially the horse meat in my food, thank you very much.

Many times in my life well meaning people would ask me why I worked so hard growing and preserving my own food.  My reply consistently was, "Even if it cost more and takes more time I do it because I want to know what is in my food."  So, for 40 years I have grown my own food in various formats.  I want to share with you bit by bit how I did and what I've learned over the years and

I Want To Challenge You To Grow At Least Part Of your 

Annual Food This Year

The goal is to choose what food products you think you can grow with the amount of space you have and see just how much nutritionally dense food you can grow for yourself and your family this year.

What is Nutritionally Dense Food?

Recent studies have shown that foods grown from hybrid seed have 25% less nutrients than Heritage or Heirloom seeded foods.  Additionally, GMO or Genetically Modified Foods have been shown to cause a multitude of disease and serious genetic malformation in the animals and humans that eat them.

Buy your Food From A Local Farmer You Know

When chain stores (even famous organic food stores) are caught selling conventionally raised foods labeled as organic to customers to get higher profits you need to know and be able to trust the grower of your food. Be careful and know where your food is produced.  There is no real entity inspecting 'organic' foods from China or some other countries for that matter.  USDA only inspects a tiny percentage of the products coming into this country!

Farmers Markets are great places to purchase 'local food'.....maybe.  Our family has grown food for farmers markets for almost 30 years and have seen just about everything, especially people purchasing produce from a local grocery wholesaler that was grown hundreds and hundreds miles away and then selling that same produce at much higher prices after having labeled it a organic and locally grown.

ASK, don't assume because it is sold at a Farmer's Market that it is Organically grown.  Will your grower allow you to visit their operation or actually encourage it?  The old saying still goes,

Let the Buyer Beware

So, Where do you start?  Initially my first litmus test is that I buy only food that is as close to the way my God, the creator, first created it.

I also encourage you to start slow.  So this month I'm asking you to take a hard look at what you buy and the amount of space you have.  There are so many ways to now grow a lot of food even on a patio deck.  In Russia folks are often given a 40 x 100 square foot lot.  They put up a small living quarters and then grow 85% of all their food for the YEAR on every spare inch they have left.  Can we not do the same?

So whether you are a beginner with a small space, already have a good amount of space or are looking for a place we'll show you what you need and how to grow it in the smallest space possible.  We are also going to share with you how to store for winter and cook for health.  The greatest part is that you can do this and have a full-time job or perhaps do this so you can keep your spouse home with the kids.

Join us! Let's Talk about it!

"She is like merchant ships; she brings her food from afar.  She rises also while it is still night, and gives food to her household, and portions to her maidens.  She considers a field and buys it; from her earnings she plants a vineyard.  She girds herself with strength, and makes her arms strong.  She senses that her gain is good; her lamp does not go out at night."  Proverbs 31: 14-18

Recovery

Grandma Farmer is doing much better now since the revision of a previous knee replacement mid January.  I don't have a laptop computer so I've had to wait until I was able to sit at the computer for reasonable periods of time to be able to write blogs.  I've got tons of ideas in my head for future blogs to you, my favorite readers.

If you want to hear about growing your own food, serving nutritionally packed foods to your families and so much more stay tuned.  What's more tell your friends because we're going to get discussing so many great ideas for all of you!

Make Your Own Gluten-Free Baking Powder

This is got to be one of the simplest solutions for Gluten-free living yet!  So simple it just takes two simple ingredients and a fork.......and your done in seconds!

Why bother?  The best reason is that you control EXACTLY what goes into your baking powder.  No worries of some hidden contaminate, aluminum (that your body has trouble processing, tends to build up in your body and is implicated in Alzheimer's), or genetically modified corn products.

There are two ways to go here and I'm going to offer both to you:

This Week With Grandma Farmer

SORRY I'M LATE!  You can play catch-up with the Bible Reading or just start where you are!

One of my TWENTY WISHES for 2013 (see: Creating Goals for 2013) is to read through the Bible Chronoligically in 2013 and to read two books a month.

This weeks Bible Reading:

January 6: Psalms 6, Proverbs 6, Genesis 18:1-21:7
January 7: Psalms 7, Proverbs 7, Genesis 21:8-23:20, Genesis 11:32, Genesis 24:1-6
January 8: Psalms 8: Proverbs 8, Genesis 25:1-4, 1 Chronicles 1:32-33, Genesis 25:19-26, Genesis 25:7-11
January 9: Psalms 9, Proverbs 9, Genesis 25:27-28:5
January 10: Psalms 10, Proverbs 10, Genesis 28:6-30:24
January 11: Psalms 11, Proverbs 11, Genesis 30:25-31:55
January 12: Psalms 12, Proverbs 12, Genesis 32:1-35:27

I'm still Reading:




THE NEW ANSWERS BOOK: Over 25 Questions of Creation/Evolution and the Bible by Ken Ham


Let me know what you are reading!