Welcome to the July Green Moms Carnival! I’m so excited to be hosting the carnival especially with Food Preservation as the topic because I think that food is one of the first ways that many moms choose to “go green,” by opting to eat seasonally and locally. Once you’ve found your farmers you can learn to save money and enjoy that produce year-round by buying in bulk and preserving it. Please take the time to visit each post!
Food Preservation Basics
Tiffany from Nature Moms Blog gives a nice summary of different types of food preservation, along with some tips for getting started in her post Bringing Food Preservation Back to Our Kitchens.
Katy of Non-Toxic Kids (and my Moms Clean Air Force teammate) shares 3 Ways to Preserve the Summer Bounty. Berry picking is a great way to teach your children where their food comes from and get some great pictures of ruby stained faces. Katy also suggests pesto (yum!) and baked goods as ways to preserve.
Laura of Pug in the Kitchen shares tips for preserving food with little ones underfoot in her post Preservation: Pickles, Jelly and Sanity. I’ve found that my canning has dropped way off (as in, come to a dead stop) since I had Joshua because big pots of boiling and a baby who wouldn’t let me put him down were not a combination I wanted last summer.
Michelle of Green Bean Chronicles writes about canning, freezing, dehydrating, fermenting and not preserving in her post There is More Than One Way To Skin A… at The Green Phone Booth.
Canning
There are so many different ways to preserve food, but many people think of canning first. I have loved seeing the resurgence of canning in the past few years. It’s hip to can! Can you believe it?
Deanna of Crunchy Chicken, one of my long-time favorite blogs, contributed some fantastic canning recipes. Just the titles make my mouth water!
- Blackberry, Rum and Black Pepper Jam
- Indian Masala Strawberry Jam
- White Chocolate Raspberry Jam
- Cognac Vanilla Peach Preserves
- Cacao Peach Preserves
- Ginger Peach Preserves
- Spicy Sweet Relish
- Spiced Sangiovese Strawberry Jam
- Black Pepper and Peppermint Strawberry Jam
- Vanilla Amaretto Strawberry Jam
Lisa from Condo Blues and Lazy Budget Chef writes about her first canning experience in I Canned Jam and Nobody Died. There are so many people who are afraid of canning, but once they try it they realize how easy it can be! It’s blueberry jam, by the way.
Mary Clare from In Women We Trust totals up the return on a $20 seed investment in her post Can Yourself – Grow Money, Grow Friends. You’ll be shocked!
Anna from Green Talk shows us how she has worked on Greening the Tomato Sauce Process. There are great pictures to walk you through the steps of using a tomato press.
Linda of Citizen Green shares her tried and true recipe for marinara sauce in her post Use Your Garden Tomatoes in this Sauce. It’s versatile and can be canned or frozen.
For those of us with a pressure canner and nerves of steel, Jena from Married to the Farm tells us about Pressure Canning Green Beans. Don’t be scared!
I want to also share a few of my own favorite canning recipes from here at Farmer’s Daughter:
Freezing
Photo Credit: Laura from A Pug in the Kitchen
Lisa from Condo Blues and Lazy Budget Chef shares step-by-step tips on How to Freeze Fresh Tomatoes, for those of us who are a little too scared of the pressure canner.
Zoie at TouchstoneZ shares various ways to make organic strawberries from the local farmer’s market last and finds making freezer jam is even sweeter with her kids and a little reggae on the side in her post We’re Jamming.
Anna from Green Talk walks through the steps of Cooking Pumpkin and Squash for Easy Winter Storage. She reminds us not to forget the seeds!
Karen from Best of Mother Earth explains that while she doesn’t do a lot of preserving, she does cook from scratch and makes sure not to waste the leftovers in her post How Do You Preserve Food?
Emily from Live Renewed shares a step-by-step tutorial for freezing fruit, along with a neat tip for pitting cherries, in her post Preserving Summer’s Bounty – Freezing Berries.
Lori of Groovy Green Livin shares how to find, freeze and thaw blueberries, as well as their health benefits in Preserve Summer: How To Freeze Blueberries.
Diane from Big Green Purse Blog shares a step-by-step tutorial on how to freeze tomato sauce in her post Make Your Own Delicious, Organic Tomato Sauce. Here’s How.
I love to freeze sweet corn for use in soups, stews and cornbread throughout the year.
Drying/Dehydrating
Deanna of Crunchy Chicken shares Drying Herbs for Idiots.
Beth of My Plastic-free Life shows us how to make dried apple slices and fruit leather in her post Dry Summer Produce to Keep Through Winter Plastic Free
Mama Bear runs through a pro/con list of dehydrating in her post Kitchen Adventure: Drying Strawberries. She outlines how to use the oven to dehydrate food.
Cold Storage
Jena from Married to the Farm shows us how to store carrots throughout the winter in her post How to Store Carrots, and Save them for Seed.
Dairy
Deanna of Crunchy Chicken shares:
Marci of Down on the Farm has two grass-fed Jersey milk cows and is in my opinion an expert cheesemaker! Check out her how-to’s:
Do you know what kefir is? I didn’t until I read the following two submissions. Now I want to try some! I have one question, how do you pronounce “kefir”?
Micaela of Mindful Momma‘s husband John shares how he makes homemade kefir in his guest post Kefir Madness. Can I just say how cool it is that there’s a DAD joining the Green Moms Carnival?
Jen of Puddle Jumping shares her very low-maintenance kefir making system in her post Easy Homemade (Refrigerator) Kefir. I’ve gotta get me some of that kefir.
Baking in Bulk
Betsy from Eco-Novice shares her recipes for baking in bulk and freezing, which means she can have homemade food in a pinch!
Miscellaneous
Deanna of Crunchy Chicken shares Homemade Rosolio and Candied Orange Peels.
Brenna of Almost All the Truth shows us how to reduce food waste and eat more of the green leafies with her post Getting Greens with Organic and Fresh Green Smoothies.
Phew! What a huge carnival! There were a grand total of 45 submissions! (Unless I counted wrong, my eyes are tired from all this typing!) I want to send a special welcome to our new participants Marci, Zoie, Brenna and Jena. Jena is a VERY new mom to her son Kent. Congrats Jena!
Thank you everyone for joining the Green Moms Carnival! Next month’s topic is Back To School and will be hosted by Micaela of Mindful Momma. The deadline is August 4 so get writing!
Please join in by sharing a link (or two, or a few) to your favorite food preservation post.
Farmer's Daughter 
And don’t forget, talk to your local extension office – they offer hands on classes from an expert! Don’t worry, every state has extension and they have an office in every single county across the country. Just google: ___________ (Your County) Extension Office. These offices are hosted by the land grant university in your state, such as Cornell University in NY, or the University of Missouri. They have experts in your area to answer questions, they even do soil samples! An amazing resource.
Unfortunately here in CT they just had a huge budget cut and people are getting laid off. There was even a threat that they’d be closed, but thankfully that didn’t happen! I wrote about it here: https://farmersdaughterct.wordpress.com/2011/05/14/save-the-connecticut-agricultural-experiment-station/
Extension across the country is changing, in every single state. My husband’s job as a 4-H specialist was even on the chopping block with a plan from the university to cut the entire 4-H program. (Youth development, really?!?) Luckily that didn’t happen, but state’s are evolving into different models, regional based. So even if there isn’t a specialist that works right out of someone’s home county, their office should be able to get them in touch with the person who leads the program. Perhaps they have to drive an hour or so to get to the program (and probably pay a small fee for it), but the extension services are still offering these educational, hands on learning experiences.
I wonder how that works if you don’t live in a county (don’t have counties in Virginia if you live in a city.
Thanks so much for hosting this month’s carnival – this is a popular topic and a hugely useful gathering of insight and tips!
I can’t wait to read all these posts as this is something I really want to get better at. Just found out I have a good friend who is an experienced canner and she has offered to can tomatoes with me in the fall towards the end of the season (then no more canned tomatoes in metal cans for me!). I’m very excited. Also hoping to try some freezer strawberry jam this season — or try one of the recipes above! Thanks for hosting this ginormous carnival, Farmer’s Daughter.
So glad that you guys pulled out this together! I’ve been gardening and preserving food since 1991 when I met my husband. Even so, I can still learn some new stuff. Though this week I’m up to my eyeballs in tomatoes and peaches, but I’ll save this post to read this weekend.
Yum! Deanna’s recipes sound divine. 🙂 Great round-up of articles!
What a great article! This is definitely one to bookmark!
These posts sound fabulous as do the recipes! Will definitely be saving this link.
What a great carnival-so many wonderful suggestions and tips. Thanks for putting it all together!
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