Popular Things We Like to Make

 Pesto

Hot chili oil

Passata, green and red

salsa

dried tomatoes

Looking Backward

Now that winter is here and the garden is not producing, a perspective is settling in for me.  An answer is formulating to address the question of what to grow, what to preserve, what to eat, to facilitate a diet based on the "Nourishing Traditions" perspective.  

Last summer, I had already committed my garden plans to reality when I discovered "pickling", or lacto-fermenting as a means of food preservation. Now that the time for which I was preparing has arrived, I can see that what I should grow next year is in part everything I am buying now.

Instead of looking at the seed catalog, getting all excited, growing a bunch of stuff, figuring out how to preserve whatever grows, and then eating whatever I came up with, I think it would be wiser to look at it from the other way around:

What foods do we want to eat in the winter, when we are [more] dependent upon imported items, prices, and availability?  How would we prefer to find and use these items in their preserved state?  This is the harvest for which I should plan, which is the list I should look for in the seed catalog!  

In light of this, I have decided to make a matrix of Everything and how it connects through this perspective.  What I need to figure out is how to best post this information.  Good luck to me!       

Rotten Tomatoes

Even bad news is simply feedback.  Today, I finally got to the line item, on my list, of sorting through the tomatoes I stored at the end of summer.  Each one, I had very carefully wrapped in paper at the recommendation of a super nice woman I met recently.  She told of how, in Washington where she is from, she did this for several years running and had ripe, fresh, red, round, juicy tomatoes into February.  Dutifully, I did what she suggested.  The boxes, filled no more than 2 layers deep, were stashed in the coldest, driest place I could find.  This location happens to be a largely-unused bathroom downstairs off the kitchen.  Since it does not have a tub or shower installed, there is a large wall-surface area upon which I installed shelving for storage.  The thermometer in there sadly, registered too warm much of the time, 60 to 65 degrees depending upon when the temperature was taken, and up to ~70% humidity.  The squash is doing ok in there.  The potatoes are sprouting.  The tomatoes mostly all ripened and rotted.  Tsk, tsk - I should have started monitoring them sooner.  The garlic and onions started sprouting, too, although Kristin noted that some of them have come from the store that way - by the time we get them  they have already experienced detrimental conditions which set an irrevocable reaction into motion.
As I write this, I am revising an idea I had.  The pages on this blog should be about various storage places I determine through trial and error to be the best condition for what list of vegetable(s), instead of a page about each vegetable and the conditions it likes.  Hmmm.

Right now, my computer is broken and I'm competing with Andreas for this one until (if) that miserable Cody gets finished with my desktop.  So Andreas is out, taking advantage of the short window of sun while I 'waste' it inside computing.  It is almost closing now, the clouds are rolling over as I write this, but I feel guilty because we are finishing the last of the stupid, glorious irrigation project.  Burying pipe was my part of the agreement, and it takes longer than one might think to pack soil around all those many pipes.  So, out I go.  Time to compute more later!

Preserving Food in the Willamette Valley

In pioneering days, homesteaders did not rely on pressure canners and large chest freezers to "put by" enough food to survive the winter.  This page is dedicated to address the question of "How the heck did they do it?"

The research I've done has led to the discovery of many pages on lacto-fermenting various food items, as well as other methods of preservation.  Each blog I visit on these topics is more fascinating than the last.  Before too long, the bookmarks became overwhelming.  This blog became necessary as a tool to share these wonderful ideas from all over the globe.      

In the Willamette Valley, a root cellar isn't as feasible as some other places, because of our humidity and water issues?  This problem is one I'm still contemplating, and hope to resolve.  The time between late summer and before it gets cold enough to consider outside acceptable "cold storage" is a problem.  One solution is a refrigerator dedicated to lacto-fermented items.  It certainly isn't what they did in the pioneer days.  Another solution is a container that can accommodate a quantity of jars (a roughneck 10-gallon tote can nicely accommodate 12 mason jars), and a cooler could be even better.  Once the jars are filled, they could be refrigerated overnight and placed into the tote and buried up to their neck in sand.  I don't know how long this would keep them cold enough during this seasonal transition.

Root vegetables need certain conditions.  I don't know what makes them rot or sprout.  Lower humidity is good, or higher? Carrots, onions, garlic, potatoes, squash, turnips.  How did the Willamette Valley pioneers do it?  An above ground root cellar (heavily insulated) could do it (?), if only space weren't such an issue (at least at my house).

In addition to asking the question of how pioneers in this area managed to survive the winter, I also wonder what makes the most logical sense here and now.  Until I figure out how to salt pork, etc., maybe a chest freezer would make the most logical sense.   

Water-bath canning still may make sense for tomato paste & sauce, but I'm undecided.  Next year, I will definitely try lacto-fermented salsa.  Lacto-fermented thick tomato sauce is an attractive idea as well.  The thought of a product with enhanced nutrient content is such an attractive one.  The idea of preserving nutritionally-enhanced green beans and corn without the fear of botulism, is very alluring.  As I explore these traditional options, I will keep you posted.  If you have two cents to contribute, I'd be happy to hear from you!