by Lisa Mulder
Amazing gardeners, hopefully by now we have an overwhelming crop in our gardens… maybe too much to eat all at once! What should we do with this amazing abundance? Eat, preserve, or donate!?
Apples, cherries, saskatoons, string beans, celery, Swiss chard, zucchini, and eggplant are my favourites to grow and preserve. Essentially, the options to preserve food include blanching, freezing, canning, and dehydrating. Fermenting is another option which I won’t go into here but includes sauerkraut!
Blanching and freezing work best for string beans, spinach, Swiss chard, peas, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, celery, zucchini, eggplant, and winter squash (pumpkin, butternut squash, etc). The trick to blanching is to cut the veggies into a manageable size (for example, slice to ⅜” before blanching), boil in lightly salted water for 2 to 3 minutes, then suddenly plunge into an ice bath. Squeeze out the excess liquid and freeze. I especially love blanching and freezing string beans (sauté in butter to serve) and Swiss chard (use like frozen spinach).
Canning preserves food in jars. It’s extremely important to follow the safety protocol when canning, but when done well, it’s amazingly satisfying to see all your canned goods lined up together on display. The boil method of canning is the easiest and best for acidic foods like tomatoes and fruit. Your tomato crop will make an amazing salsa or pasta sauce or try your hand at a fruit jam, jelly, sauce, or pie filling.
I love dehydrating! You can dehydrate food in your oven or in a dehydrating appliance. Cut your food open to let the moisture escape, slice about ⅜” thick and then dehydrate! This is best for strawberries and apples or your Thai dragon peppers! You can puree fruit to make fruit leather. Get creative and add some veggies or hot peppers to your fruit leathers. Dehydrate tomatoes, cooked pumpkin, or green leafy veggies and blend to make powders. It doesn’t get healthier than that!
You can combine the methods above. My absolute favourite recipe is to blanch zucchini and eggplant slices and then dehydrate to make no-carb “lasagna zoodles.” When dehydrated, zoodles are preserved forever (especially in our dry climate). Pull them out for a low-carb lasagna any time of year… just replace the traditional pasta noodles with these “lasagna zoodles” and bake as you normally would.
On the downside… preserving food can be hot and hard work. Worse, you are often doing this work in mid to late summer when you’d rather be paddleboarding! If preserving food isn’t for you, there is another amazing alternative: donate it! The Calgary Food Bank loves donations of potatoes and other easily preserved fruit and veggies. The Calgary Community Fridge takes donations too… make family-sized packages (fresh or frozen) and drop them off directly at the Community Fridge at 902 Centre Street North.
Gentle Reminder: The RCG in-ground beds are there for everyone to enjoy. The raised garden beds are planted and nurtured by members of the Renfrew Community Garden and are not for public picking.
There are some amazing recipes for blanching, canning, or dehydrating to be found online. And don’t forget to check out the Renfrew Community Garden at https://renfrewcommunitygarden.wordpress.com/.
Click here to the Renfrew Community News home page for the latest Renfrew community updates.
