Where:  Cornell Cooperative Extension, 615 Willow Ave, Ithaca

When:  Jan 8, 2009 * 6:00-8:30

Home Food Processing is an important part of building our local foodshed—keeping food on everyone’s tables.  Join experienced IthaCan food preservers for an evening mini-workshop featuring five different food saving techniques.  Hands-on activities in Canning, Cellaring, Drying, Pickling and Freezing will be offered.

Dinner:  Provided and Dishes-to-pass welcome    6:00
Slideshow:  How & Why to Put Up Food    6:30
Workshops:  Choose one of the five    7:00

This event is free and open to all.

Sponsored by:

• IthaCan
• Sustainable Tompkins
• PreparedTompkins.org
• Cornell Cooperative Extension Healthy Food for All

Adding a small root cellar to your existing home will provide you with fresh veggies throughout the winter and spring. Irma calls the design provided here a root closet, because it’s roughly the size of a bedroom room closet (the interior space is 3½’ x 7½’). At less than 27 square feet, it will be one of the hardest working corners of your basement.

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Have questions about the ongoing financial meltdown but the Wall Street Journal gives you angst? Confounded by exponential growth and hockey stick graphs? Wish you’d paid more attention to the dark musings of your brother-in-law accountant at the family reunion this summer? Whelp, The Crash Course is a refreshing change from dreary economic data and here’s the good news: it’s friendly, informative and probably more interesting than your brother-in-law. Continue reading this post…

Dehydrating…

- is easy

- preserves nutrients

- saves energy

- is space efficient

As a food preservation technique dehydration is only eclipsed by root cellaring for preserving valuable nutrients. Dried foods have a 3-5% nutrient loss; compare this to freezing’s 30-40% or canning’s 60-80% nutrient loss.

You can dehydrate fruits, vegetable and meat using a variety of methods. There are convection ovens designed with dehydration settings (check your users’ manual), electric dehydrators (sold in most department stores) and solar dehydrators (which you can build yourself). More creative methods are out there too, like dehydrating in the back window of your sun-drenched car or using the low heat from the pilot light on your gas stove.

However you dehydrate your food, the trick is in keeping a steady low temperature and low humidity. Dehydration temperatures need to be high enough to prevent mold from setting in, but low enough not to cook the food as the moisture is being extracted. The optimal range is between 120-140°. Here’s a great how-to site from the National Center for Home Food Preservation on the topic.

Bea Reddy’s dehydrated tomatoes that you see featured here will be dropped into winter soups or reconstituted with oil olive for stir fries.