B2B Book Reviews 2: Food Preservation & Storage

This year’s Back To Basics Living Bundle is truly a gold mine of information on food preservation and food storage. It’s a comprehensive collection of information covering canning, dehydrating, fermenting, freezing, and pickling, as well as planning and pantry organization. You’ll find forms, checklists, and recipes included. It was hard to pick just a few to review for this post.

Jennifer Osuch’s Dehydrating–Charts and Basic Methods caught my eye because I’ve pretty much fallen away from dehydrating. However, I’ve recently learned a technique which has renewed my hope for drying more foods. (I’ll tell you about that technique in an upcoming post.) Jennifer does an excellent job covering the basics in this book, including foods like watermelon, berries, corn, tomatoes, citrus fruits, and odorless onions; how to make powders including pumpkin flour, how to make “quick cook” dried beans, plus an introduction to meals in a jar.

The charts include conversion charts which give pre-dehydrated weight and volume, method of preparation, and dehydrated weight and volume for an extensive list of vegetables. The time chart includes temperatures and drying times based on humidity. Humidity makes a difference! As a bonus you get a printable page to create your own Dehydrating Journal plus printable labels.

Many of you know Patrice Lewis from Rural Revolution. This year’s B2B Bundle includes her Introduction to Canning, which is actually three booklets in one: Introduction to Water-Bath Canning, Introduction to Pressure Canning, and Canning FAQs: 100 Basic Questions About Canning. Includes a thorough discussion of safety and equipment, altitude charts, tips, and how-to basics for canning fruits, vegetables, and meats. The FAQ section discusses alternative heat sources, what not to can, and trouble shooting.

There are quite a few other food preservation and storage offerings, but the last one I’d like to mention is Oh Lardy’s Guide to Fermenting Fruits & Vegetables by Kelly Liston and Tamara Mannelly. Regular readers of my blog know that I am a fan of fermenting, and for me this guide is a next step into more fermenting adventures. It covers basics for vegetables and fruits, equipment, health benefits, how to use, and answers common questions. The recipe section includes a nice variety of recipes for fermented veggies, sauerkrauts, fruits, drinks, dips, condiments, salsas, and salad dressings. It also includes a nice list of resources.

The Back To Basics Living Bundle will be available through January 22 and includes 73 homesteading, self-reliance, DIY, and preparedness resources plus about a dozen bonus offers. You can choose online access to download the bundle for $29.97, the flash (thumb aka USB) drive option for $54.97, or both for $59.97 (one for you and the other as a gift).

BONUS: If you buy the bundle through my blog, I’ll gift you with your choice of one eVolume from my The Little Series of Homestead How-Tos. After you place your order simply email me at 5acresandadream @ mail. com, and let me know which one you’d like. I’ll send you a link to download a free copy.

Tomorrow I’ll review three of the bundle offerings on preparedness.