#6. Canning.

I am continuing to read Crisis Preparedness Handbook: A Comprehensive Guide to Home Storage and Physical Survival and Spigarelli is going more in-depth with the nutrition vs. cost aspects of purchasing food storage items in "special" forms such as dried/dehydrated, and more conventional forms, such as canned foods, bags of sugar, and what have you.  It's a little dry reading, but at the same time, I appreciate the value of the information even though it has been 8 years since the book was published. I figure that some things may have changed price-wise, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse but the basics remain sound.

At this point, I'm thinking that a combination of storage options would be wise.  Some dehydrated foods (but not a whole lot unless someone gets me a dehydrator for my birthday), canning (but mostly fruits and tomatoes unless someone else gets me a pressure canner for Christmas), and commercially purchased items.  I did find a place for purchasing bulk goods online that ships anywhere in North America; however, the budget probably won't allow for that until I've been back at work for a bit.

I used to do a lot of canning, once I discovered it wasn't as difficult as my mom made it seem.  I had a really nice weight-gauge pressure canner.  Unfortunately, I was foolish enough to loan it to my sister-in-law, who lent it to her daughter, who lent it to her neighbour, ad nauseum.  (Note to self:  if I ever get another pressure canner, I am never loaning it to anyone ever.)

However, I can do boiling water canning, and this is the time of year for it.  The blackberries are still coming in, although we're coming to the end of the season.  And if the apple tree in a certain park nearby is producing, I'm thinking some blackberry/apple jam would be nice.  I was surfing YouTube and came across a video on the jonathanwallace channel.  I love this fellow's videos.  He has a very clear way of explaining things, and his videos are well done.  What I really like is that you can see he's not one of those rich nobs that has all the latest gadgets and a kitchen the size of a footfall field to do his canning in.  He's got a normal kitchen like mine.

Anyway, he shows how he makes blackberry/apple jelly with the juices, and then makes blackberry/apple butter with the pulp after the juice has been squeezed out.  Very frugal, and just the sort of thing you ought to be looking at when stocking your extended pantry. 

Do you like that term?  Extended pantry.  That was what the gentleman on the GoatHollow channel calls his food storage.  Here's another fellow with a normal sized kitchen who's  making sure his extended pantry isn't bare.  He recommended that you get a good canning guide that has all the up-to-date info on canning safely.  The one he had was the Ball Blue Book Guide to Preserving.  Another very good book is the Complete Guide to Home Canning and Preserving from the USDA.  In fact, that's the one I have, and it's a great book.  It doesn't just have recipes, it also tells you the whys and wherefores.  It explains how pressure canning works, and more.

There are also a lot of old canning books available on archive.org in the Text Libraries.  Unfortunately, the canning processes described are way out of date.  When I want to try out one of those old time recipes, I search for a modern tested recipes that has a similar ingredient list, and use the processing guidelines from the modern recipe.  I have found that some old recipes that called for boiling water canning will now have to be pressure canned because research has shown that this is safer.  But in the end, when I'm in doubt as to how long to process something, I will ask.  There are all kinds of forums out there, or just email one of the canning companies or the USDA, and they will have an answer for you.  Just be patient about getting a reply.

More again at a later date...