Stretching the season's bounty | Philadelphia Inquirer | 2011-06-22

There is only so much pea and potato salad or buttery peas and mint or pea risotto a girl can eat each spring.

Having planted, harvested, and shelled pounds of peas, and eaten some at every meal this week, I am looking forward to serving cold pea soup - sometime much later this summer - fresh from the freezer.

While many devoted cooks wait until late August to put up tomatoes and peaches, they miss out on preserving many of the tastiest and most fleeting treasures of spring and early summer from local fields, forests, and gardens.

If you like the idea of blending your own raspberry syrup for summer sundaes, baking blueberry pies through the fall, or sipping your own herbal tea blend, the time to start is now.

With a few simple skills and a little planning you can extend the local harvest in small batches at home. There are countless ways to preserve: drying, freezing, fermenting, in oil, with salt, with sugar, with acid, in alcohol, and many combinations of these. While these strategies are no longer necessary to ensure enough food to get through a hard winter, they can fill your larder with unique and delicious foods at a fraction of their supermarket cost - and those beets pickled in June will be most welcome on the Thanksgiving table.

A basic understanding of some of the factors influencing spoilage, flavor, and texture - moisture, enzymes, bacteria - helps clarify how each process works and when it's safe to innovate.

June is the time for local strawberry jam, and making a small batch of sauerkraut to ferment in time for July barbecues. Blueberries and cherries ripen next, and both can be easily frozen for later pies and cobblers. August is prime time for peaches, dried and in jam; tomatoes, frozen, canned, and dried; basil pesto by the gallon; dilly beans; pepper spreads. Early September is great for pickling cucumbers, mushrooms, carrots, and beets, but also for making applesauce and pear butter.

Throughout the season try to harvest herbs at their peak just before they flower and dry some laid out on screens, or tied loosely in bundles in an airy, but shady spot. Some herbs such as tarragon, thyme, and chives are great to flavor vinegar. Simply stick a few sprigs of fresh herbs - just before or while they are in flower - into a bottle and cover with vinegar.

Puree basil or cilantro, with or without garlic, in good olive oil and freeze in ice cube trays. Once frozen these can be popped out and bagged and used as needed on noodles, chili, stews, or soups.

Canning Pickled Banana Peppers « pureandsimplelife

Fill your jar with sliced banana peppers. Add the garlic, salt, oil, and crushed red pepper right into the pint jar with the peppers. Pour the boiled sugar/vinegar/water mixture over the peppers and fill to 1/4 inch from the top of the can. If you’re short on liquid, add equal parts vinegar and water to finish filling the jar. (Make sure you get some of the boiled sugar mixture into each of the jars before you fill all of them all the way to the top!) Wipe rims, put on hot lids and screw bands on.

Preserving Food Without Freezing Or Canning, Traditional Techniques Using Salt, Oil, Sugar, Alcohol, Vinegar, Drying, Cold Storage, and Lactic Fermentation

Simmon's spice mill, devoted to the interests of the coffee, tea and spice trades

Preserves And Canning, Enjoy Fresh Fruits and Vegetables Anytime

Foreign trade in canned goods

Peppers, the domesticated Capsicums