The Absolute Beginners Guide to Learning How To Cook for Survival: Part 15 Technique Blanching

Cooking foods does lots of great things for us. First off it often improves the taste, which is always nice. Cooking can also liberate more nutrients providing more power for our bodies. Proper cooking can also kill off surface bacteria. 

I'll focus on the last one for this post: Killing surface bacteria.

Generally speaking most of the food we have is pretty darn clean, but people walking around the produce section can and do cough and sneeze. A simple wash will wash off most of these germs but if you need to be sure your vegetables are germ free you can employ the blanche. 

Blanching food does several things. It will kill surface bacteria, it will liberate cellular oxygen allowing the base color of the food to be more easily seen and it will loosen the skins on certain foods.

You already know that bring water to a boil will kill the germs in the water, but did you realize that boil water will kill the germs on the outside of the things put into the water? Nobody ever mentions it but this is actually very important. 

Have you ever noticed how bright the colors are on those vegetable trays you can get at the store but the raw vegetables you get from the produce section are rather lackluster looking at the same time? The reason is that raw foods still have lots of oxygen bound up in them. By blanching foods the heat will cause the oxygen to liberate from the cells of the food allowing the colors underneath to shine through.  Overcooking will cause the colors and the cellular structure of the food to breakdown resulting in an ugly gray goo. We're going to prevent that with an ice-water shock bath. This works best on foods like broccoli, beans, carrots and celery, you know, the foods you usually see on a veggie tray.

Blanching will loosen the skins on certain foods, like tomatoes and peaches, for easier processing. Cooking tends to weaken cellular structures, since a blanche is so quick only the very outside of the food will cook, that makes skinning the food much easier and less wasteful. This is most often used on foods like tomatoes and peaches. This is the first step to making Tomato Concassé, which is the foundation of tomato sauce, or peach cobbler.

Blanching

To blanche food you need:

A big pot to boil the water in. Wider is better so the food will have room to float around and not touch other food. Lots of water means that the boil will recover the boil faster.

A large bowl, filled with a 1:1 ration of water and ice. After about 5 minutes you will have water at 32°F (0°C). This will shock the food, cooling it down quickly and stopping the cooking process. If we just let it sit on the counter it will continue cooking until it reach equilibrium.

A spider or slotted spoon. To get food in and out of the boiling water.

Since you are working with lots of water a few towels would be handy.

For a veggie tray, you'll want to cut the foods into bite-sized pieces before blanching. Lower a spider full into the water and allow to cook for 30 seconds, then using the spider again remove them into the ice-water bath for the shock. after 1 minute they will have stopped cooking. You can dry them in a salad spinner or on some towels. If you are not going to eat them within the hour store them in the refrigerator to keep them out of the Danger Zone, wrapped in some moist towels to keep them from drying out.

Fresh Tomato Sauce

If you have a garden with tomatoes one of the great things to make is your own tomato sauce. To make a good homemade tomato sauce you should start with a tomato concassé, because the seeds are tough and bitter and the skin will curl up into nasty little tubes that never soften. 

Ingredients

20 Roma Tomatoes, concasséd

1/4 cup olive oil

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

1 teaspoon pepper

1 cup finely diced onion

2 teaspoon minced garlic

1 tablespoon finally chopped fresh oregano leaves

1 tablespoon finally chopped fresh thyme leaves

The juice of 1 lemon

Tomato Concassé

For skinning fruit, you'll need to cut a small X in the base (non-stem end) of the fruit and lower 2-3 of them into the water with the spider for 30 seconds. Then remove them with the spider and shock them in the ice-water bath. After a minute you can peel them by rubbing them in a towel to remove the skin or if the skin is still hanging on too tight with a paring knife by grabbing the loose skin at the X we made between the knife and thumb and pulling. We live at high-altitude so we need to go for 60 seconds to loosen the skins enough. Discard skins. 

Cut the tomatoes in half and using your finger remove the seeds and pulp, discard the seeds and pulp. Chop the tomatoes into large cubes discarding the hard stem. 

In a large non-reactive pot cook on low the tomato concassé, oil, salt, pepper, onion, garlic, and herbs for about half an hour until most of the liquid has cooked out.

Add the lemon juice. Let that return to a boil. Check the seasoning and adjust salt and pepper to taste.

The Absolute Beginners Guide to Learning How To Cook for Survival: Part 13 Cooking Utensils part 2

Bowls A good set of nesting bowls is very helpful and doesn't take up much space. Metal is better then plastic since plastic will link with fat molecules so they are hard to get really clean. Glass is also great since you can put them in the microwave if you need to heat or defrost something, but they can break. Bigger is often better but don't get one so big it doesn't fit in your cabinet or dishwasher.

Graters Lots of things need to be grated and a good box grater makes it easier, it needs a nice wide base. For hard cheeses, citrus and other fine grating jobs a microplane grater rocks.

Stainers and colanders are for separating foods and liquids. Slots work better for draining liquids and make sure to have a bowl or other container big enough for the stainer to fit in. Wire mesh strainers can be also be used for sifting flour. You'll want a big one that will fit into a 6 Quart bowl for washing large amounts of food like before a canning session. A medium sized one of 2 Quart size for pasta, and a small one of 1 cup size for straining loose teas and other herbal infusions, this is also great for sifting flour and powdered sugar when baking.

Can opener, get at least three of these for your kitchen and two in your emergency kits. You can brute force your way into a can with a strong knife but a can opener is much easier and safer.

Measuring cups and spoons and scale, all recipes have ingredients that need to be measured. Two sets are important, stainless steel is the most durable. An electronic scale is fine, a manual balance scale would be great.

Peelers or vegetable peelers are designed for getting the skin off of foods like carrots. They are also very good at making very thin slices of firm foods like potatoes; homemade potato chips a breeze to make. The most important thing is to get one that's comfortable for your hand.

Scissors are really useful. You want a few of these. A pair of general purpose scissors for opening bags and cutting butcher's twine is a must. They can be good but not great pair. On the other hand a great pair of kitchen shears can save you a lot of work. It can cut the back out of a chicken carcass or the fins off of a fish. Since this is for cutting raw meat, this must be stainless steel and they must can come apart so you can really clean it.

Bench scraper, amazingly useful not just for manipulating dough but also transferring chopped foods from the cutting board to a bowl or pan.

Ladles are really just spoons with a deeper bowl. I like the calibrated ones, 1/4 cup, 1/2 cup and 1 cup. It makes potion control easier.

Spice grinders, pepper mills and mortar & pestle. Whole spices last years so they are great for storage, but you need to break them up when you want to use them. Whole pepper is a great and easy addition. Pepper mills are good for pepper, obviously, and other pepper sized spices like allspice. For something like cinnamon sticks or chunks you need something different like a spice grinder or mortar and pestle.

Mallet or meat tenderizer sometimes you need to flatten food, but don't over do it or you'll make mush. There are two basic styles, Hammer style and vertical style, a flat base and a vertical handle. A matte finish with rounded edges is best.

Food mill is a manual food processor, something very handy for preparing foods for canning or making mashed potatoes.

Storage containers there'll be no more plastic bags after a collapse so some good and durable storage containers are going to come in handy. Plastic is fine as all materials will eventually wear out or break.

Ice trays not just for ice any more, get them in the 2 Tablespoon size which are good for freezing egg whites, and small amounts of stock for helping dishes.

Rolling pin, a solid one piece French style rolling pin is almost indestructible. But an 1.5 inch wooden dowel will work fine.

The Absolute Beginners Guide to Learning How To Cook for Survival: Part 12 Cooking Utensils part 1

If you're cooking you don't want to use your hands to reach in and try to flip things over and unless you're on top of Mount Everest you don't want to reach into a pot of boiling water. That are what the various utensils are for. You want to have at least 2 sets: one for working raw foods, particularly meats, and one for cooked. Switch when the last raw side goes down to the hot surface. And have at least one set for working over a fire or outdoor grill.

Spatulas are one of the first thing to use to manipulate foods on the stove. Spatula is an overloaded word used to describe a flat metal flipper or a soft silicone paddle. Generally speaking when talking about cooking a spatula is a one of the flat ones not the rubber ones usually used in baking, which I'll talk about later. They can be solid, perforated or slotted. The holes reduce surface friction and allow fat to drain. Slotted ones are best for turning fish as a solid spatula will shred the fish, the long open slots allow the fish to slide without catching. Metal allows for more flexibility but should not be used on non-stick surfaces which require plastic. 

Rubber spatulas are often just called spatulas in the baking context. Rubber spatulas usually made from things other then rubber. High temperature silicone can be using one the stovetop without melting and are great for making omelets. Get a small one for getting into jars and frosting cakes, a large one for folding ingredients together, and a spoonula for transferring creamy, fluffy foods like puddings and whipped cream.

Spoons let you bring out samples of foods for tasting, which is very important so you can adjust the seasoning before serving. Slotted spoons allow you to drain foods that have been poached or deep fried. Metals spoons can be lighter and more aggressively shaped then wood or plastic but conduct heat which is bad for candy-making. When getting a wooden spoon get one with a thick handle so you can use it as a spurtle or a pestle. 

Tongs are great for manipulating foods. Too often I need to flip something cubic over and a spatula will sometimes just flip it all the way over. Tongs give you way more control.

Whisk works best in a rounded bowl or a saucier where it can reach the corners. It is best at combining particulates and liquids. There are two basic type the round for working up the sides and the flat for scraping the bottom of the pan. Lots of tines and big round head is better.

The absolute Beginners Guide to Learning How To Cook for Survival: Part 11 Towels

The next most important thing are towels. Towels!? Yes, towels. The basis for safe cooking is a clean and hygienic kitchen and you can accomplish that best with towels.

You'll need wash cloths that generally stay at the sink for wiping things with lots of water and scrubbing vegetables and pans and the counter. This really don't need to be fancy at all, bar mops are cheap and sturdy. All-white cotton cloths are nice so you can bleach them clean.

Dish towels for wiping your hands, soaking up larger spills and keeping foods covered. You don't want fancy embroidery or decals, those are art for hanging on the walls, not serious kitchen tools. I like sturdy, waffle-weave towels and terry cloth. 

We also like flour sack towels for covering food since they are so light, and also for wringing out water laden foods like frozen spinach and shredded potatoes.

Some people like sponges, but those are germ hotels. Sure, you can put them in the dishwasher or boil them or even zap them in the microwave, but those might be hard to pull off after a crash. I prefer to use towels and go with a fresh set every morning after they had the night to dry, they just go in the next load of laundry. You'll be doing laundry anyway. 

You should have enough towels to go for at least a week without doing laundry. You'll want a wash cloth for each sink and a dish towel next to each sink and next to the stove for cleaning up spills.

An important accessory for a towel is a small spray bottle filled with about a cup of water and 1/4 teaspoon of chlorine bleach, the unscented stuff, please. This is a powerful sanitizing solution you can spray around the kitchen to kill bacteria and viruses. That you should definitely use after cooking a meal with raw meat or at the end of the day.

Sanitizing Solution Formula: 1/4 teaspoon chlorine bleach per cup of water or  1 Tablespoon per gallon.

The absolute Beginners Guide to Learning How To Cook for Survival: Part 10 Knives

Knives are a big deal they are the oldest kitchen tool of all. Like most old tools there are an enormous number of specialized variations for all kinds of jobs. They also come in a wide variety of metals and non-metals.
The most important feature of a knife is how well it fits in your hand. If it doesn't fit you well, you won't be able to use it well and it will be more likely to slip and cut you.
You need two basic knives: a chefs knife and a paring knife. Mostly an 8" chefs knife and a 3" paring knife will do most of the work you'll ever do in the kitchen. But remember to make sure it fits you. My wife has smaller hands and so a 6" knife is better for her. I am on the large size and a 10" knife works best for me.
If you do a lot of some specialize task then getting a specialized knife makes sense. If you do a lot of fishing a fillet knife is helpful. Baking your own bread, which my wife does a lot, a serrated bread knife is great. We also like getting whole chickens and breaking them down ourselves, and a boning knife makes that job easier and faster.

There are some important accessories that your knife needs.
Two cutting boards, a plastic one for cutting raw meats that you can put in your dishwasher, and a wooden one for cutting vegetables since a good wood cutting board is a fast surface for cutting lots of ingredients quickly.
A honing steel, will realign the edge of the blade to true which keeps it sharp. It doesn't sharpen the blade, that requires a sharpening stone, which you should also own and learn to use.
A knife holder. Don't keep the knife in the drawer, it is dangerous and will dull your blade and scratch on everything else in the drawer. Whichever you choose make sure that the edge of the blade has minimal contact. You don't want the vertical blocks where it sits on the edge.

The Absolute Beginners Guide to Learning How To Cook for Survival: Part 8 Bakeware

Baking is the most complex part of cooking, combining physics, chemistry and often biology.

Baking often involves a specialize pan of some kind or other. Do you need all these pans? Probably not. Bread has been baked freeform for millennia. Pies made without a pan are called a galette. Though a good casserole is great for many things, a round one will also work as a soufflé pan. And a half-sheet pan is amazingly versatile from making sheet cakes to cookies and acting as a tray.

Most recipes expect a matte metal pan usually aluminum. If you are using a dark or glass pan reducing the heat by 25°F helps brown things at the right time. A shiny metal pan would reflect heat increasing the heat by 25°F would keep the cooking time the same. If you are at high altitude reducing the heat by 25° helps protein structures set on time. 

• A covered roasting pan, after the end of the world getting aluminum foil may be hard to get to cover things for steam roasting.
• Pie plate, I like glass for even browning. Get three (corn starch, egg, coating) for doing coatings for deep fried foods.
• Cake pan, matte rolled-aluminum for even heating.
• Casserole, ceramic so you can't see inside, round or oval to eliminate dry corners.
• Ramekins, for individual desserts like creme brulee and organizing ingredients. 
• Soufflé pan, optional, a round ceramic casserole will work but a good way to use up eggs.
• Loaf pan, for breads and meat loaf.
• Rectangular 9x13 pan, for brownies, lasagna and cakes. I like glass and folded metal with sharp corners.
• Square 8x8 or 9x9 pan, see 9x13 pan.
• Sheet pan (in half size) or jelly roll pan. Matte, rolled aluminum is remarkably useful as a cookie sheet, sheet cakes, and even as a tray.
• Cookie sheet, I don't like them since they tend to warp. 
• Bundt cake pan or Tube pan, Angel food cake pan, optional
• Springform pan, mainly for cheesecakes and they tend to leak, a cake pan is better.
• Tart pan, a variation on the pie pan with a pop out bottom making it easier to remove.
• Muffin pan and Popover pan, optional
• Pizza pan and deep dish pizza pan, I like to use a perforated one on the grill instead of one of those  speciality grill top pans.

The Absolute Beginners Guide to Learning How To Cook for Survival: Part 6 Pots and Pans: Ceramic

Ceramic is second oldest form of cookware, right after the large flat rock.

Ceramic comes in two forms: glazed, like porcelain and unglazed, like terra cotta; both are insulators. Glazed ceramic is non-reactive and non-porous, however some glazes have been made with high-concentrations of lead, so if you are unsure of the origin of a pan take it to your local extension office to be tested. Unglazed ceramic is porous, liquids can leech into the pan and stain it. Some pans like the Römertopf use that as a feature requiring you to soak the pan in water before use allowing it to absorb water which it can release to steam the food as it cooks in the oven. 

The Absolute Beginners Guide to Learning How To Cook for Survival: Part 4 Pots and Pans: Steel

Steel is the other major material used for making cooking pots and pans. Usually found in the stainless variety but you can find non-stainless steel pans out there. 

Stainless steel is tough and durable. Since it is non-reactive it can handle high acid foods like citrus and tomatoes. 

Stainless steel is not a great conductor so you often find it bonded to or clad with other metals, like aluminum or copper, to improve its heat transfer capabilities. 

Stainless steel is also a little bit sticky, which is good for building pan sauces from the fond or the brown bits left after searing your food. You can deglaze the pan with water, stock or other water-type liquid to release the fond and flavor the pan sauce.

The Absolute Beginners Guide to Learning How To Cook for Survival: Part 2 Pots and Pans

Now we turn to pots and pans. While ceramic and large rocks have been the traditional standard for thousands of years, I am going to stick to the major modern materials: cast iron, aluminum, steel, glass, and ceramic. 

Cast iron is simple and durable. Can go from freezer to oven without complaint. Plenty of grandparents have passed their cookware down to their granddaughters and beyond. Cast iron can rust, this can be countered somewhat with proper seasoning (see manufacturers instructions). Another downside is that it is reactive, therefore generally bad for cooking high acid foods in for long periods of time, this will affect the color and taste of your food, though a good seasoning mitigate that. This can be countered by coating the cast iron with enamel giving it an impervious surface. Cast iron is very heavy this is good because that means it will hold on to a lot of heat that it can transfer into the food, but hard to maneuver because of its weight. Cast iron is a slow conductor which makes the pan slow to preheat and slow to cool. 

A cast iron pan is ideal for searing a steak and a cast iron pot is ideal for baked beans, chili and pot roast. An enameled cast iron pot is ideal for high acid foods like tomato sauce and onion soup.

Clean then with kosher salt and a scrubbie. Do not use soap, it will strip off the seasoning and flavor the pan.

The Absolute Beginners Guide to Learning How To Cook for Survival: What Food is Made Of

Too many people I talk to lately have no idea how to cook. They can follow a recipe but they can't think of what else they can do with it. This will be an ongoing series on what food is and how to cook it.

Food is made up of thing like proteins, carbohydrates, water, oils and various vitamins and minerals.

Heat breaks down the cell walls of food releasing more of the nutrition inside. Sure, some nutrients will be destroyed in the cooking process but far more will be liberated to make up for that. If that wasn't the case why would anyone keep cooking food. Gathering firewood and maintaining a fire would not be worth the effort to do if the food was better without cooking.

Meat is primarily made up of proteins which are made up of long molecular strands, that uncurl when heated. This is called denaturing and tends to make meat tender and that is why meat is generally has the best texture at medium rare to medium, especially if you let the meat rest for a few minutes to allow the juices to redistribute within the meat. As you keep heating the proteins they will tangle up with each other and begin to contract again, as they contract they will squeeze out the water that was floating between the protein strands, making the meat tough and dry floating on a plateful of juices. 

Staple foods like potatoes and grains and most vegetables are made up mostly of carbohydrates or starches. Starches are a plant's way of storing energy, like animals use fat. Usually as complex carbohydrates, which are large molecular structures. The only problem is that our bodies aren't able to break down such large molecules, that is why we get gas after eating beans. So we need to break them down into something smaller that the chemical and physical processes we have can break those down. The heat of cooking will break down those complex carbohydrates into simple sugars which we can process very easily.

One of the reasons food turns brown, when it is cooked, is because the sugars, that the carbohydrates are breaking down into, are being caramelized. 

Storing Different Kinds of Salt

Salt is a vital nutrient. What do you think an electrolyte drink is made of? 

Your tongue dedicates a quarter of it's tasting capability to detecting salt. It is the only mineral we can eat directly. Salt is very important to have in our stores. 

We often have to much in our food but that is processed foods. Normally you only need to store about 5 pounds of food per person per year but that is not including what you need to process your own food like salt curing meats.

Salt is very simple to store, actually. It must be kept dry if you want it easy to use. Getting 3 pound boxes from the warehouse club is fine, just pop them in a sealable plastic bag before putting away. The very best thing is as long as it is dry it stays good as long as the container does.
Salt dissolves in water, but you can evaporate the water back out but that is a lot of energy and work.

There are many different kinds of salt, we have 6 different kinds of salt in our kitchen and there are plenty more out there, but we'll talk about only a few:
Table Salt
Kosher Salt
Pickling Salt
Rock Salt or Ice Cream Salt

Table Salt is iodized. The iodine is included to prevent goiter. It is certainly something to have in your stores for that reason. The only downside is it also tastes a little metallic, so you may not want to use it for preserving food.

Kosher salt is just pure salt in bigger crystals, it doesn't have iodine added so if you store this make sure to plant iodine rich foods in your garden or some table salt.
It isn't called Kosher because the salt is Kosher but because it is used in the koshering process. The large crystals are very good at drawing the liquids from meats by just rubbing them on the outside. This also makes it really good for dry curing meats, like country hams.

Different brands have different sizes of crystals that makes thing interesting. I got this conversion table from Cook's Illustrated:
1/4 Cup table salt = 1/2 Cup Diamond Crystal Kosher Salt = 1/4 Cup + 2 Tablespoons Morton Kosher Salt.

Pickling Salt is a very finely ground pure salt. It is specifically made to dissolve easily in cool water. This makes it great for making pickles and brines in general. If you like to cook pork or chicken or turkey this is great to have handy. It also makes good topping for popcorn.
The great thing is if you have Kosher salt you can make your own pickling salt by whirling it up in a food processor or blender. You're just making a finer grind on the salt.

Ice Cream Salt or Rock Salt is also found often in grocery stores. This is not an edible salt, it tends to have high concentrations of minerals making it taste bad and is usually mined. It is used for reducing the freezing temperature of water so you can make ice cream or de-ice your driveway. This is also used for water softeners.
The reason the Fahrenheit scale 0° is where it is, is because that is the coldest you can get with a 1 part salt and 3 part ice mixture.

Cascading Meals

Cascading meals or using leftovers from one meal to the next for an extended period of time is a great way to save time and effort. 

It is one thing to cook a large amount of food specifically for the leftovers, but it is something else to plan a series of cascading meals built around the idea of using leftovers from one meal to build another very different meal.

Look at the effort to use up turkey leftovers. You have the turkey, then turkey sandwiches, then turkey hash, and finally turkey soup. There may be even more steps in there, but you get the idea.

We are trying to see how long it can go on for. We used a large flatiron steak for fajitas, and used it again for steak sandwiches. We also made Broccoli Beef from it and plain rice, then used the extra rice in Fried Rice and some teriyaki Chicken, which is going into potstickers with the fried rice as a side dish.

This certainly makes the most sense for things that take a lot of energy to make in the first place, but that also store well when cooked. Up here in Denver rice takes about 23 minutes to cook, which isn't too bad, but I can make extra and refrigerate it for a few days and do all kinds of things with it. Rice also freezes very well.

Beans take much longer then rice and if you are careful not to break them up too much they store in the fridge and freezer quite well. And if it didn't store too well you can always make refried beans out of it.

It allows you to spend more time on the main dish with less worry about the side dish.

You can do it the other way too, like with the turkey. Once you have a main dish ready to go you can spend your time on an extra special side dish. Kinda like putting an okay piece of art in a really nice frame.

Then there are things like Italian sausage. I really like hot Italian sausage in spaghetti sauce , and lasagna and in a few other applications.  And we always use it cooked and crumbled. So rather then keeping the raw form frozen in a big lump, which needs to be defrosted. It is easier to cook and drain a big bulk package of it and then bag, tag and freeze and just pull out a handful as needed.

Share your ideas on how your cascade your leftovers to different meals.

Disaster Cooking For Lots of People

Another lesson to learn from the Haiti earthquake is that with a lot of people in distress there will be a need to feed them. Even if the food from the stores are looted a lot of that food needs to be cooked in some way. Especially things like rice and beans, which take a lot of water and heat to cook.

75% of American homes have a grill in the backyard. This means that most people have a backup cooking system in place already. After about a day without power you are going to need to cook any uncooked meat from the frig as it will be getting too warn in there. You may get a couple of more days before you have to do the food from the freezer.

A typical 20# bottle of propane will run for about 10 hours depending on the output of your grill. An important thing to do is to conserve fuel. Cook as much as you can in one go. If you can't fill the grill, you can always add a pot of water to boil to make safe drinking water.

If you have a side burner you can just use that and it would use a lot less fuel because you have the heat focused on one pan.

If, like me, you are part of a group preparing for a disaster and you have a place you can setup as a shelter you may end up trying to feed hundreds of people. Then the equation chances. To give you some perspective try the Manual of Army Cooks and Manual of Army Bakers.
These are old manuals from before WWI, which would be close to the level of technology we would have after a major disaster.  They even have plans for field expedient ovens.

Oatmeal Challenge Update

I've been doing my Oatmeal Challenge for a week now and I am feeling pretty good even considering all the junk food we've received for the holidays.

I don't feel nearly as hungry during the day. I seem to have a more stable energy level during the day as well, rather then it swinging up and down.

I am using the Good Eats Overnight Oatmeal recipe with whatever dried fruits we can get and it is very nice. It makes enough for a few days and I have to thin it down with some milk after the initial batch, though eggnog works really well.

Food Preservation: Canning

We used to have a raspberry bush that was very productive. We could usually get a pint of berries a day, even with small animals snitching bites. We made the best raspberry jam with those berries.

What's really interesting bout canning is that it was the result of an X-prize set up by Napoleon who was trying to find a way to feed his army more reliably and less hardship on the local farmers then living off of the land. Armies had become too large to pull that off.

Nicolas Appert won the 12,000 franc prize with a process that not only preserved food but killed off any microorganisms that could spoil the food. That was the start of the water bath canning process. Some competitors canned their foods without the water bath part of the process and a lot of people died from food poisoning. It would be some 50 years until Louis Pasteur would figure out why and how to prevent it.

It was our sad duty not to long ago to help an elderly brother in our ward remove a lot of old home canned goods from his basement. His wife had been an avid canner, and had died a few months before; since he was going to move into a daughters home he was donating it. We did find some very old items way in the back corner that was labeled in the '70s that we just tossed but most was in surprisingly good condition.

Mostly canning is about taking the harvest from summer and fall and preserving it for the cold of winter. It also comes in handy to buy food when it is least expensive and saving it for later. It is a great frugality trick.

Canning is a lot like baking, there is relatively little room for error so following the recipe precisely is important.Now the bible of canning is the Ball Blue Book of Canning. It has been the standard for decades.

Canners come in 2 sizes, quart and pint, we have a pint-sized one and our niece has a quart-sized one and I have come to the conclusion that quart is better since you can do pints in it as well, an aftermarket pint holder is not a big expense.

There are 2 forms of canning, water-bath and pressure canning. Water-bath cooks the food at the boiling point and is good for high acid foods like fruit, pickles and tomato sauce. Pressure canning uses a pressure canner to increase the temperature to 240°F which kills everything so you can can low-acid foods such as meats.

Pickling Supplies

My mom had a nice pickling crock. Once she started a batch of pickles and then we went on vacation. When we got home, the house smelled something fierce. It was obviously not gas but we couldn't figure out what it was. Then we remembered the pickles. Ooh, it was nasty.

One of the main ways to preserve food without refrigeration has been pickling or soaking in salt water. Its basically a wet version of salt curing. It is very effective.

Lots of things can be pickled most people are familiar with pickled vegetables. But that's not all sauerbraten is a pickled meat, and so is corned beef and pastrami.

This looks like a great place to get some of these things.

ht Cool Tools

Choosing a Pot

When you have limited space choosing a pot that can serve multiple duties can be a real space saver. Which you should get depends on how you cook and how you want to cook. Here are some of the things we've thought about before getting our current pot.

We cook pasta fairly often and unless you like stirring the pot often to keep the pasta from sticking you want one big enough to hold a gallon of water and since you want some headspace for the water the food is going to displace it should be at least 6 quarts. Now, if you are just boiling water for pasta all the time, going with a lightweight aluminum is great, it heats fast and is light enough even full of water to dump in the sink.

We also like cooking pot roasts using 7-bone roasts. Usually rubbed with salt, pepper and cumin cooked with a mirepoix and some beef stock. It makes great left overs like pot roast sandwiches, shepherd's pie, enchiladas and BBQ sandwiches. These roasts are often 12 inches across so having a pot that is big enough for that is important to us. The big thing for this is you want an oven proof pot that can hold lots of heat to quickly brown the meat. Cast iron is best for that. Virtually indestructible and able to hold lots of heat, as a downside it is rather heavy.

Buying a whole chicken saves us money by doing the portioning ourselves and allows us to customize what we do to it. We often end up with bones, backs, gizzards and like that we freeze for stock making later. We usually save up a chicken or two before cooking it down. There are lots of good gelatins in chicken bones that make for a great tasting and textured chicken soup. With that much chicken parts we often end up needed a stock pot near the 8 quart size and most stock pots are lightweight aluminum.

The last major thing we like making is homemade spaghetti sauce. That is a high acid food cooked for a long time. Tomatoes would be able to leach metallic ions from reactive metals like untreated aluminum and cast iron, impacting taste and perhaps our health.

That requires us to look at stainless steel, anodized aluminum and enameled cast iron. The stainless steal is good but is a not so good conductor so needs special clad bottoms and that can run into money for the good stuff. The anodized aluminum is nice and light but we didn't find anything at the time that was wide enough for the pot roast. The enameled cast iron is heavy and comes in an amazing number of sizes and some great colors.

We finally decided on a 7.25 quart Le Creuset French Oven in a gorgeous Cherry Red. Big enough for a 7-bone roast. Small enough to fit in our cabinets. And looks great too. It also has a 101 year warrantee, I expect to be able to hand this down to our great-grandchildren.

It does take a couple of extra minutes to bring water up to a boil but not enough to be a deal breaker.
It also works great as a deep frier as long is you have a thermometer for keeping an eye on the oil temperature.

Lessons Learned Thanksgiving 2009

We had a great time at my sister-in-laws for Thanksgiving. We had a good plan starting the day before and we ended up having some good breaks between times of food preparation.

We did the pies (Pumpkin, Apple and Chocolate Mousse) the night before.

After the Turkey went into the oven we cooked the neck and stuff into a stock for the gravy and boiled the potatoes and sweet potatoes. The turkey started at 500F for 30 min, it got a little smokey but the skin was George Hamilton brown. An exhaust fan that sends the fumes outside works way better then those that have the little filter on it. Then we dropped the heat to 350F and slapped a heat shield (Al foil) on the breast to keep it from overcooking. We had a nice break while all that cooked. Grownup talk time, yeah.

Then after mashing the potatoes (the food mill worked great for this), and a roux for the gravy we had another nice break.
Finally we blanched the green beans and cooked the bacon. Stir frying the beans in the bacon drippings with salt and pepper turned out great, though some garlic would have put it over the top.

After pulling the turkey, and draining the pan we used the turkey drippings for the dressing. A gravy separator or baster would have been handy but the baster disappeared, one of the kids must have got it, but poring off the fat worked well enough. I threw the rest of the dripping into the gravy with the roux and brought it to a boil to thicken.

Everything back into the oven to get warm, while the turkey rested. Called in the family, disassembled the turkey and served everyone buffet style. The mashed potatoes went more quickly then we expected, there were none left, they made extra so we'd have leftovers but oh, well.

The next day for dinner, I threw together a turkey casserole. Dark meat, dressing, green beans and gravy, with cheese and breadcrumbs on top baked for 20 min at 350F. Bubbling hot and crispy on top, was a big hit.
Usually I go for a turkey Shepherd's pie but without mashed potatoes I needed to improvise.

Lessons learned:
Ideally, I would have a timer for each burner on the stove and for the oven.
A food mill works great for processing lots of potatoes/sweet potatoes.
Using a thermometer for the turkey is way better then time.
A fan that exhausts the smoke outside is much more effective then the typical recirculating ones.
A tile floor is rather hard on my knees and ankles.