The Things I Do Not Preserve, and Why I Stopped
August is when the kitchen fills up and every jar starts to look like a good idea. Here are the five things I have taken off my list for good, what I do instead, and why saying no got easier.
Preserving
Preserving
Where I Actually Store the Jars, and Why It Is Not the Pantry
Nobody warns you that storage is the part that decides how much you should make. My first shelf was on a hot south wall, my labels were unreadable, and one unexplained jar taught me the rule I use now.
The Preserving Gear I Actually Kept After Three Years
I emptied the bottom cupboard in June and sorted every piece of preserving equipment into keep, donate and what was I thinking. Here is what earned its space, what I bought far too early, and where cheap is a bad idea.
The Day I Stopped Guessing and Checked the Actual Guidelines
Someone handed me a jar of home canned green beans at a plant swap and I could not answer one simple question about it. That jar sent me to the official guidance, and changed which things I make.
Why I Started With Fridge Pickles and Stayed There a While
Refrigerator pickles get treated as the training wheels version of preserving. They were the only thing I finished eating in my first year, and they taught me things about salt, timing and my own habits before I ever touched a canner.
The First Batch I Ruined and What the Mold Taught Me
My first jar of fermented green beans grew a gray ring on top while I told myself it was nothing. Here is what actually went wrong, what I threw out, and why a loud failure was the cheap kind of lesson.