Jenny Gomes

On today’s episode we have expert fermentationist and homesteader Stephanie Thurow, author of several books on fermenting as our guest. She blogs at Minnesota From Scratch, and you can buy her books here. 

Fermentation is in some ways the art counterpoint to the science of canning. Fermentation is “done” on X day, rather than Y minute in canning. Fermentation uses the wild bacteria in the air on on veggies to make them easier to digest, to save money, and to recall fermented foods of yesteryear. It extends the life of fruits and veggies far beyond their natural shelf life. Fermentation uses simple tools and is an easy practice to begin today! 

Listen to the episode for step by step directions for how to get started making sauerkraut, common mistakes to avoid, and more! 

In this episode, Anna and I share some beloved holiday food traditions. Food and family is at the heart of what we love to discuss and on today’s episode we share our beloved holiday food traditions.

Anna was raised in Alaska and her food traditions are salmon-heavy. She ate smoked salmon dip with cream cheese, mayo, and ritz crackers growing up and even today, those flavors feel like home.

Anna’s family also ate chicken and wild rice soup which sounds incredible.

Her inlaws always have homemade hard candies with flavors of cinnamon and anise in pretty dishes around the house.

Anna is always the party MVP when she brings her spicy jellies to holiday get togethers.

Jenny recalled family rolls; in her family, her Gram made the rolls for years and now, her sister and cousin make them too.

Jenny’s aunt used to make chocolate peanut butter balls and now, it hardly seems like Christmas without them.

Jenny’s mom always made homemade Kailua (a coffee liqueur) with instant coffee. Get the recipe here! The best part is that recipe takes only an hour!

Both of us recalled the iconic jello salad – red, green, and white layers of nostalgia!

In this episode we welcome Elisa Giorgio of Meal Planning Blueprints. She’s a friend, an expert meal planner, teacher of the Capsule Pantry, and a whiz at freezing to reduce food waste, limit meal prep time, and pleasing picky eaters. 

We dove in and asked her to explain her best practices when freezing foods. She explained the best ways to make your freezer space work for you and described putting all the raw ingredients for a meal in a ziplock style bag and freezing them all together. We discussed how to make a whole casserole style meal like a lasagna and freezing it, and then talked about freezing individual parts such as cooked taco meat, or chunks of bananas for smoothies. 

Her best tips include keeping things simple, and suggested that freezing parts can be easiest for beginners. Elisa described the “make 2, freeze 1” approach to cooking, where you make two meals at once and freeze one of them. 

Her best tips also included avoiding freezing dairy as it doesn’t tend to have a good texture afterward thawing and she shared how to avoid freezer burn; the thicker the plastic barrier, the better. Wrap foods in plastic and then again in either more wrapping or another container to best prevent freezer burn.

Elisa explained how to freeze “superhero” items to prevent mealtime crisis such as frozen breakfast items (Anna and I both never considered this) such as waffles, precooked sausage, etc. 

Go to www.mealplanningblueprints.com/minimalist to learn more about Elisa and what she does, and follow her on Instagram here. She also offers a free training on her Capsule Pantry Method- sign up today! 

In this episode, Anna and I explore the oldest method of food preservation, dehydration. 

There’s many ways to remove the moisture from food but the bulk of this episode focuses on using an electric dehydrator or your oven to remove moisture from foods. 

We both love this American Harvest dehydrator for the temperature gauge, tray variety available perfect for smaller foods and fruit rollups, and for the price point. 

We discuss best tips for keeping your fruit looking great including using Fruit Fresh and fruit juice dips.

Listen in to get all the best practices for dehydrating like a Master Food Preserver!

Anna and I get asked often what the best canning books are. Here’s our best recommendations.

First up is The USDA’s Complete Guide to Home Canning can’t be beat in terms of accurate and high quality information. This one doesn’t  have a huge variety of recipes but it is a great book. 

Well Preserved by E. Bone is a great choice for an experienced canner. It has a canning recipe and then 3 cooking recipes that use that recipe. It’s a genius book set up and I love it.

Canning for a New Generation by Lianna Krissoff is so good that both Anna and Jenny each have two copies. It’s a fantastic book with a huge variety of recipes.

Food in Jars by Marissa McClellan is an excellent book especially for an urban or small space canner. She has many clever tips and tricks. This is a great book for beginners and intermediate canners alike.

So Easy to Preserve – Georgia Cooperative Extension – no pictures but so comprehensive. It will tell you how to properly can everything. It is best purchased from the website, not Amazon.

Can It and Ferment It – Minnesota from Scratch author Stephanie Thurow explores water bath canning and fermenting in this beautiful book.

Foolproof Preserving – by America’s Test Kitchen is a great resource for beginners and intermediate canners as well.

Ball Blue Book Guide to Preserving – no list of canning books is complete without this book. Ball’s recipes are tested and have stood the test of time.

Fermented Vegetables by Kirsten Shockey deserves honorable mention. If you love food preservation but are new to fermenting, Kirsten is the queen. Bow down and enjoy this incredible book with excellent directions and a huge variety of recipes.