Handmade Food & Craft Tutorials for Beginners
In today’s episode we are diving into the process Anna went through to be licensed to sell her amazing jams in person at farmer’s markets, craft fairs, etc. While your state may have a different path, this episode is valuable for anyone interested in exploring how to become legal in selling their canned goods. Listen to learn how you can too, the ins and outs, and all about Anna’s experience!
In today’s episode we give you all the good ideas for canning for charcuterie and appetizers. Anna is a whiz at canning hot (and hotter!) pepper jellies and she gives great flavor combination suggestions in this episode.
We mention an awesome site for board inspiration, Ain’t too Proud to Meg. Check her out for amazing board ideas!
One tip from this episode is to can in small jars so the preserve is portable and easy to take to the location of the gathering.
Some of the recipe combinations for hot pepper jellies include: jalapeño jelly, cranberry jalapeño, apricot habanero, pineapple habanero, peach jalapeño, blackberry basil, apricot, strawberry rose, strawberry coconut, and more.
Get the dried pepper powder online here: The Sonoran Spice Company
A few pickles I love for charcuterie boards are the carrot pickles and the pickled pearl onions.
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!
