Green Options

After years of experimentation, I have come up with the perfect recipe for easy, hearty, healthy, stick-to-the-ribs tasty chili, right in the slow cooker.  And I’m going to share it with you.

But first, let’s talk about what you can do to make your chili — and all your cooking, really — more “green.”

There may be some ironic, redeeming inspiration over the fact that the economy is in the can: the revival of home canning. As headlines lament the downward spiral of retail, the canning industry reports an inspiring increase in sales.

A key reason roots back to probably the same reason why our grandmothers routinely canned: it simply made economic sense. By making fruit preserves as home, you could get a better-tasting, higher quality product much cheaper. Today we can add environmental sense to that equation: home canning enables us to eat more local, organically-raised produce year-round, eliminating the need for fossil fuel based transportation costs.

Despite this rationale manifesto for home canning, getting started can prove to be a discouraging hurdle as the process – from fruit processing to hot-water baths – can seem overtly time-consuming. Not so, according to Linda Amendt, the cape-crusader of home canning. Winner of over 900 awards in state fair culinary competitions and author of two cookbooks, Amendt is on a mission to help people rediscover for themselves the satisfaction and savings of home canning.

“Making a batch of jam is no more complicated than whipping up a batch of cookies,” explains Amendt. “And I promise, nothing off the store shelf will ever compare to what you make in your own kitchen.”

Here are some of her tips to get off to a successful start in homemade preserves, the easiest route for novice canners. While the official growing season is – alas – behind most of us, stockpile these tips till next year and in the meantime use fresh apple cider, which is still available, for a great beginning project (recipe after the jump).

Food Prices Too High? Tired of overpriced, undersatisfying meals? Want to have fresh, local food on hand all year-round? Ten Ways looks at eating local, fresh and delicious.

It’s not hard to see the value in local, seasonal food, but how does one go about finding it, preparing it, and saving a little money along the way? Check out this installment of Ten Ways for a few tips on enjoying wonderful food 365 days a year.

1. Grow Something Edible

   Planting seeds, starts or other edible living things in and around your home (wild yeast cultures or sprouts count too) are great ways to have fresh, delicious food on hand. Plus, it’s cheap. Seed packages start at less than a dollar, soil or compost can be purchased (or found) at pennies per pound, and water in the form of rain or out of the tap are both economical choices. Aside from an investment of time, growing your own food requires little else.

The National Center for Home Food Preservation is offering a free, online, at-your-own-pace course in home food preservation through the Universtiy of Georgia.  Topics include:

• Introduction to Food Preservation
• General Canning
• Canning Acid Foods
• Canning Low-Acid Foods

For more details or to register, visit Preserving Food at Home: A Self-Study.

More about home food preservation:

• Killer Canning
• Preserving the Harvest

Home canning is all the rage. Eating locally is in, and doing so year-round pretty much requires some kind of food preservation. No one’s freezer space is unlimited, and home canning is a great way to preserve the harvest. It seems every food blogger is canning and offering recipes for the foods she’s canned.

Unfortunately I’m seeing a large number of unsafe canning recipes posted on various food, recipe, and local eating blogs, and we aren’t talking about just the kind of unsafe canning that gives you a few days of gastrointestinal misery. We’re talking serious neurotoxins, botulism, paralysis, and death.

Here are a few key bits of knowledge, useful whether you’re canning yourself or are the recipient of a home-canned gift.