Wow what a nice haul on the chantrelles! whats your preference on preserving them. I mostly have all mine ate before I have a chance to even think about preserving them but in the off chance this is a good year would love to hear how you do it. Dry? sautee and then freeze? or other trick?
love the thread Pepe
thanks Dustin
I like to cook them in brine to 3/4 cooked, put in jars filled to the top with the brine they were cooked in and add a spoon of vinegar in. Close well and pasteurise in a oven at 100c or in boiling water for 10mins.
Best canned greenbeans.
The frozen ones tend to loose their flavor fast, and become mushy.
I can my beans by filling the jar adding salt I have to check the ball canning book for how much the fill with water and straight into the pressure cooker to can them. Easy and they come out great. I am not a big fan of pickling.
We are freezing mostly this year. My favorite is canning without vinegar. I don’t like the “souring” effect of the vinegar. It’s ok on pizza but not real fond of it in the mushrooms. I do like them in a pickled hot mix = all the vegetables you have at the time (beans, cauliflower, onions, garlic, carrots, broccoli, mushrooms, celery, peppers, etc) pickled with a little spice in vinegar. But canning without vinegar means you lose more—or at least we do. You can put a slice of green tomato on top of the jar-full of mushrooms and pressure. We do this for canned corn. It helps add acid. I have never tried drying, but have heard it is not good for chanterelles.
We used to grow blue lake pole beans for sale too. Jade are much better to eat I think. As with most crops, the ones that do the best for market are usually not the best for other qualities. They are usually developed for their keeping/shipping qualities and something else gets traded off…
We have had good and not so good success freezing beans and through trial and error have found that blanching properly is secret number 2 after secrete number 1 is processing as soon as possible after picking. We blanch for 3 minutes after water comes to a rolling boil and then cool immediately in ice water before packing. This works the best for us and they cook up almost like fresh picked beans.
to be clear, my last post was a response about mushrooms.
Well, I just ordered some Jade bush bean seeds. I can’t wait to taste them. The beans, not the seeds.
Following up on post #168, here are a few pics of the leeks flowering. They’re just about ready to open. Some history… these leeks propagate only by seed, the bulbs do not divide. These flowers will develop seeds which will drop to the forest floor and sprout the following spring to repeat the cycle. I can’t wait to see the flowers open and the seeds develop. CAVEAT- if you pick ALL the leeks in one spot, that spot is GONE because there will be no flowers to provide seeds for the next year’s crop. Judicious harvesting, my friends, will insure survival of the bed.
I thought of something else about the processing of the mushrooms…we wash & drain them, cut them up to something like marble-size, saute lightly in hot butter or olive oil (cook fast and hot for short time), let cool, bag and freeze.
About the beans: we make a lot of pickled dill beans from the best and straightest. They sell quite well. We use the culls and crookeds for canning.
Pickling has definite merits. Thank the Babylonians some 4 - 5,000 years ago. Then there’s fermentation, lactic acid, anaerobic conditions are a basic miracle. Ask Icelanders about skyr… As for canning, acidity is a major asset. Acidity is a natural defense against botulism. Although, bo-tox is broken down by heating, why out forbears heated everything to a boil before eating. We have become over confident in canned goods processing, though some people still die every year.
Anytime you preserve food you have to realize it is a science not cooking. The instructions have to be followed to the letter. That said it is easy enough to do safely. I personally feel safer knowing how I processed my food.
We do anywhere from 500 to 2500 quarts of canning a year. Everything from blackberries to chicken to venison to vegetables, fruits, syrups, honey, you name it… But we still occasionally have a batch that has an unusually high failure rate. I agree with both posts above. When you cheat too far it can bight you…
I got my Jade bean seeds yesterday and a neat surprise with them.
I thought this “hand written thank you” was a really nice touch. How many has anyone gotten? Well, I’m telling everyone I know. I think I’ll write him back and send him a link to the promotion.
Hope this is an OK post, Chris.
Pepe
Hope your Jade beans turn our better than ours at the moment. Ours have drowned. I looked at the weather forecast this morning and said, “well, that’s it for the garden.” The children cheered. They like to work and they like to garden, but every year at the end of the season they get really excited when they hear the words “sow a cover crop”. That used to be more true when we farmed for a living. Now it’s a fun little tradition I guess.
Is White Harvest a family owned operation?
Yes, it is family owned and operated, the backbone of America! I’ll be doing all the business with them that I can.
I think it might be time to start building an ark… Last year I had a drought so this year seems all the more weird.
Sure is different one year to the next. That’s what I call climate change. haha
I sent Mike an email today inviting him to visit the site and this page.
EDIT: I forgot to mention, I planted a 20" row of Jade bush beans also.
My strawberries came from hanging plants.
Each succeeding plant will root and bear fruit, etc.
Here’s the hanging fruit, prolific. Remember this video was taken in early October.
