Preserving the Best of the Harvest

There are many other methods other than pickling that can be used to preserve the seasonal glut of fruits and vegetable so that we can enjoy them during the winter. They are easy too!
Herbs – most herbs are simple to preserve and store – pick good fresh leaves on a dry day; rinse and dry them; then you can either

• chop or freeze them whole in small bags or in ice cube trays or foil containers so that they can be quickly and easily added to sauces, stews or vegetable dishes - be sure to label them with the date of freezing and type
• chop or dry them whole in a low oven spread thinly on a baking sheet over several hours or so checking regularly to make sure they do not burn – when completely dry store in airtight jars – again with a date and type label on them
• place whole cleaned sprigs of thyme, rosemary, sage leaves and other highly aromatic herbs into jars or bottles of olive oil – the herbs can be used in pasta and pizza dishes and the oil will be imbued with delicious flavours and be ideal for slowly roasting potatoes and other vegetables – these infused oils make a lovely gift too.

Drying or Dehydrating
When you dry food the water content is removed leaving seriously intensively flavoured fruits and vegetables of a darker colour than when fresh and which take only very little room to store. You can easily dry tomatoes, bananas, bell peppers, apple rings, chilli peppers, courgettes, onions, strawberry slices, blackberries, and a host of other fruit and vegetables. Think how much it costs to buy sun dried tomatoes… and I am sure you’ll want to try doing it yourself, ditto mushrooms especially if you collect wild and field mushrooms (be sure you know what’s what thought before you harvest mushrooms from the wild). However there is little point in wasting time drying foods that are inexpensive to buy fresh unless you have seriously large quantities and the time to dry them and the space to store them in. You can even dry potatoes if you want to. In terms of storage 10 peppers weighing 2 kilos dry down to just 100g in weight; a kilo of apples dries down to just 100g too.
The key thing is to ensure that anything you dehydrate is completely free of moisture before you set about bagging it or placing it in jars. This is essential to avoid moulds from forming and the containers and lids you use must be perfectly clean (sterile). Whilst you can buy dehydrators for home use – they are fairly common in America – they are quite hard to find here but you can use your oven instead. The best form of pre-treatment is no pre-treatment other than blanching when appropriate so that you avoid using unnecessary chemicals. Fruits are ready when they become leathery in texture and pliable without squidginess. You will need to turn them if using the oven to dry them or set them on cooling trays on baking sheets so that air can circulate properly around them. If you have an AGA or a Rayburn that is on constantly for hot water then a slotted shelf suspended above it may also prove to be great for drying smaller fruits and vegetables.
Most commercial dried fruits contain about 15 per cent water – the sugar content helps to act as preservative and they do not need to be rock hard to be ready. Vegetables, on the other hand, are dry when they are hard; herbs when they crumble easily. Keeping times are excellent for all properly dehydrated and stored fruits, vegetables and herbs will easily last a year. Experiment with a small quantity of everything first especially if you are reliant on a normal oven for drying. Select the lowest setting and expect it to take anything up to four hours to dry single layers of most vegetables – slice the root vegetables as you would if you were using them in your cooked dishes, onions are also better if sliced…
You can dry bunches of herbs by suspending them in bunches on string inside brown paper bags, chilli peppers can be strung and hung to dry in an airing cupboard or boiler room, or a conservatory or greenhouse provided the atmosphere is warm and dry. Don’t forget either than you can make fabulous dried vegetable powders for adding to soups and stocks by pulverising or grinding dried vegetables. Fruit leathers are simple to make too but really do benefit from being made in a dehydrator.

Recommended reading: Mary Bell’s Complete Dehydrator Cookbook, 1994, ISBN 0-688-13024-0 published by William Morrow & Company Inc.. USA.
Free recipe sheets, a mail order service for useful items like preserving jars, fruit presses, baking parchment, rice paper, wine making equipment, pickling vinegars, preserving sugar and lots of other ingredients and ideas are obtainable from The Healthy Way – please email info@healthy-way.co.uk or call in to the shop at 30 High Street, Ilfracombe EX34 9DA where you can also see a wide range on display.