January 18, 2017

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.

© Jan 2017 by Leigh at http://www.5acresandadream.com/

11 comments:

Sam I Am...... said...

Love all those books and you gave a great review but right now is not a good time for me since I am trying to get the house ready to put on the market come Spring. Now I know where to come though as that info is hard to come by!

David The Good said...

Thanks for the info on this year's bundle.

Dehydrating, canning and fermenting should all be basic skills for a homesteader.

And distilling. ;)

Leigh said...

I hear you! I plan to link the books I've reviewed to Amazon after the Bundle sale is over. That way you'll still know where to find these great resources.

Leigh said...

And there's no book on home brewing in the bundle! David, maybe you need write one and join in as a bundle author next year. :)

Farmer Barb said...

Wow! I hope to have a bounty this year. Perhaps I will need a recipe for chipmunks to go with the dehydrating. If I don't take care of them, I will have nothing to dehydrate!

Leigh said...

Competition with the critters is ongoing! Our cats pretty much take care of our chipmunks (and mice, shrews, squirrels, and rabbits), but something still gets to my strawberries. You deserve an abundant harvest and I hope you get one this year.

Chris said...

I don't know David, my Kombucha smells like beer when it over ferments, and we get the giggles when we drink it. ;)

Chris said...

Thanks for sharing what's in the bundle. Plenty of info there to get started on anything to do with food preservation. We've lost these skills over the years and need to practice them more.

Sandy Livesay said...

Leigh,
A great bundle of resources to have!!!

Leigh said...

That's pretty much why I'm willing to participate. This year's bundle had some particularly interesting DIY skills that I'm especially glad to have. It seems we pick up a little here and a little there, all of it welcome.

Leigh said...

Sandy, I agree. :)