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Alaska provides quite the bounty for us with fruits and veggies in our gardens and orchards to wildlife protein and more fruits and edible foods in the wild. We have an abundance at our fingertips! Now that things are starting to come on, it’s time to determine the best ways to preserve your Alaska harvest.
One facet we talk about regularly is preserving SAFELY. Among many other things, botulism, although entirely preventable, is scary if you don’t fully understand it and how to prevent it. Also, pressure canners can feel daunting if you’ve never used one – I get it! In this article, I’ll offer class ideas, helps, and even free options where I can find them so you can feel equipped and confident to preserve your Alaska harvest.
Whether foraging, gardening, or harvesting, putting a way for winter’s store is a goal that’s entirely attainable! Let’s do this!
1. CANNING:
Hint: Be watching our Alaska Homestead Academy page because our Canning in Alaska Masterclass will be released very soon! This course covers everything you need to know about canning fruits, veggies, meat, and even meals in a jar with hot water bath and pressure canning. We even cover pickling a bit!
Here are some things that are really yummy to can with your Alaska harvest:
Tomatoes
Salsa
Pie Fillings
Jams
Jellies
Green Beans
Pickles
Salmon
Halibut
Moose & Caribou
2. DEHYDRATING:
In our upcoming “Alternate Food Storage” class, we will be talking about many methods of food storage including dehydrating.
Here are some things that you can dehydrate from your herb garden or from foods you forage locally:
Mushrooms
Wild Chamomile (Wild Pineapple Weed)
Yarrow
Mint
Lemon Balm
Calendula Leaves
Raspberry Leaves
3. SALT:
Have you ever tried spruce tip salt? Incredible! Here is a recipe.
You can also make celery salt, garlic salt, onion salt, and more!
We only use Celtic Sea Salt, Redmond Salt, or Himalayan Pink Salt. We buy 25# bags from Azure Standard. If you’re interested in learning more about Azure Standard, feel free to reach out. It’s my absolute favorite way to get organic, bulk goods to Alaska that we can’t grow ourselves.
4. FERMENTING:
Our theme for our upcoming fermenting class: So many veggies – so little time! One of the very best ways to preserve the vegetables that grow prolifically in Alaska is to ferment them. This includes veggies like cauliflower, cabbage, radishes, carrots, celery, and so many more!
((If you want to join our fermenting class, here is that link. Note about the class – it’s actually being done in two parts. First, on August 19, we will be doing a community ferment and learning how to do a super simple ferment together. Everyone will take part of the ferment home with them. Then, in January, we have a 4-hour class that will dive much deeper into all aspects of fermenting – it’s like the 201 to my beginning ferment class. ))
I do about 5 gallons of a simple lactoferment each year using these veggies. One thing I love about having this ferment on hand is that I don’t have to come up with a veggie for dinner. This ferment literally can take the place of our dinner veggie – and it’s crazy healthy! Plus there is so much diversity – you can do a basic mixed ferment, a single crop ferment, and even add different herbs to change things up! I did a curry cauliflower ferment last year. It was ….. interesting! Haha!
Here is a super simple tutorial using this method: https://nourishingmeals.com/2012/02/lacto-fermented-vegetables
If you want to get a little more creative than just chopping veggies, here is a really neat tutorial to make lactofermented veggies that are as pretty as they are nutritious! https://healthychristianhome.com/easy-lacto-fermented-vegetables/
Here’s another really neat tidbit. If you love fermented drinks like kombucha then I have some much more sustainable options that use more Alaska grown ingredients!
First is Jun (pronounced juhn). Jun is a light, refreshing drink that can either be flat (single ferment) or fizzy (double ferment) just like Kombucha. However, Jun is light in color and flavor because rather than being made with black tea, it’s made with green PLUS rather than being sweetened with sugar, it’s sweetened with honey which is obviously sustainable here in AK.
The second fermented drink you may enjoy (and your liver will love you for it) is Kvass. I drink a swig of kvass every morning on an empty stomach to kick start my digestion for the day and it really does get things moving! It’s not the kind of drink you’ll likely pour into a glass – as a matter of fact, don’t do that. Just a swig each am is all you need. You can make kvass from beets (most common), carrots, ginger, and more!
5. COLD And/Or DRY STORAGE:
Root veggies need a place to stay as do some keeping fruits like apples but we all only have so much refrigerator space. So what do you do when your refrigerator(s) are full but you still have foods to store? Here are some ways we store our vegetables in cold or dry storage.
I should mention, our bedroom is right off of the main part of the house but it is unheated (unless the door is left open) and it has a cement floor. So our bedroom happens to be where we keep most things that need to stay cool. Some people have an unheated garage that they can keep from freezing or even a crawl space that is relatively cool. Just remember, temperature isn’t the only factor – you need to watch/know your humidity as well.
Potatoes: Kept under blankets to provide darkness in old milk crates in our unheated bedroom.
Apples: We have a spare refrigerator and keep all of our keeper apples in a drawer in the fridge.
Green tomatoes: We bring in the green tomatoes and let them ripen slowly and naturally in the house. The cooler they are, the slower they ripen – you could be enjoying fresh tomatoes for Thanksgiving!
This is another topic we are going to go over in-depth in our alternate food storage class which you can access here:https://commongroundalaska.com/product/alaska-homestead-preservation-alternate-food-storage/
In the alternate food storage class, we’re going to cover pretty much everything except canning (which we already did and will have in the academy soon), fermenting (which is coming up), sourdough (also an upcoming class) and freeze drying which I have no experience with.
6. FREEZING:
We freeze quite a bit of our harvest from berries to veggies to meat.
Berries: One thing I LOVE LOVE LOVE about freezing honeyberries and saskatoons is that they freeze well without having to individually freeze them. I just pick them super clean and pour them into freezer bags. They stay perfectly separated. Of course, you can’t do that with raspberries and things like that but it works great for some berries and it makes the process go so quick!
Cauliflower, broccoli, etc: We freeze our cauliflower, broccoli, kale, spinach, and other veggies in quart sized freezer bags and I try to portion them for a meal. These need blanched prior to freezing but I’ve learned that it’s much quicker to steam them rather than blanche them. Of course, I’ll be sharing lots of tips like this in our Alternate Food Storage class that’s coming up.
Meat: Freezing meat is most common but it sure isn’t the only way to preserve it. If you’re freezing your meat for a year’s store, be sure to either wrap in saran then put it in freezer bags or butcher paper, or use a vacuum sealer to keep the meat fresh for a full year.
7. VINEGARS:
Infused vinegars are so fun to make and they are crazy good for you! They can capture the flavors of summer with relatively little processing. They are so tasty on chicken, salads, and even sipped if you enjoy sipping vinegar! Also, if you process a lot of apples, did you know you can make your own apple cider vinegar? It’s true!
8. INFUSIONS/SALVES/TINCTURES:
This is such an awesome way to preserve your harvest. And it’s easier than you may think! Infusions are typically just herbs steeped in distilled water, salves are typically just a few ingredients, and tinctures are just ingredients soaked in alcohol. There are so many recipes on line but since I’m just a beginner here, I’ll tell you what I’m doing. I looked at our medicine cabinet to see what we use most. Things like Neosporin and bug bite cream are high on the list so I’m starting with those. There are tons of tutorials online OR you can keep watching because we’re going to do a hands-on class where we will make some infusions and salves for your medicine cabinet.
9. CULTURING:
Are we allowed to have favorites? I think so. And this is one of mine. 🙂 I love, love, love cultured foods. And there are way too many to list here so for the sake of this post I’m going to focus on culturing milk products. Did you know you can make a gallon of yogurt for under $10 and it only takes about 10 minutes? Imagine – a whole gallon! That will keep your family stocked for quite awhile! And each person can flavor or sweeten it to their liking, super simply.
Did you know you can make ricotta cheese in about 10 minutes as well? And it’s super simple? How about kefir? And butter? Did you know these things are super simple (and fun) to make, you control your ingredients, and they are nutrient dense!
Again, this is another reason to come to our alternate food storage class. We are not just going to learn about culturing, but we’re going to actually make some things to take home! You can get your tickets here: https://commongroundalaska.com/product/alaska-homestead-preservation-alternate-food-storage/