Shel Horowitz's Monthly Frugal Fun Tip for August, 2002
Vol. 6, No. 5: Preserve the Harvest

Your refrigerator is jammed, you're eating wonderful fresh vegetables every day. Wouldn't it be nice to enjoy some of that bounty in the cold dreary winter?

Some foods preserve very easily. Especially if you invest in a food dehydrator--a one-time purchase that lasts many years and allows you to store a lot of food in a small space. Slice up fruit or vegetables into small pieces, make sure to leave room for air to circulate among the slices, turn the unit on, and go away for several hours.

Dried food retains nearly all of its nutritional value and most of its flavor (at least if you reconstitute it later); freezing is the next best, and canning reduces both nutrition and flavor.

I don't pretend to be an expert on food preservation, but I've learned a few things over the years.
* Cut fresh herbs and hang them upside down in a sunny window. After a few weeks, take the leaves and put them in jars.
* Run tomatoes--at their very peak of flavor--through the dehydrator. When dry, pack in olive oil with rosemary and garlic--YUM!
* Also make a big batch of tomato sauce and freeze it in small containers
* Berries freeze very nicely.
* As soon as possible after you pick apples, run a batch through the dehydrator--they will taste far better than even a day or two later
* Make applesauce with another batch; you don't even have to peel it first. Just boil in a small amount of water until soft and throw it in the food processor--applesauce freezes well, too.
* Pumpkins and winter squash generate enormous amounts of usable food. When there's a surplus, boil it up, puree it in a food processor, and then freeze in quart or pint containers (leave a little empty space at the top, because any frozen food will expand)
* Label everything with contents and date; it can be hard to tell after you've dried or frozen something what exactly is inside