5 Ways to Keep Harvest Season’s Bountiful Produce Alive
One of the best parts of summer is the incredibly rich harvesting season it yields. Farmers markets are riddled with fresh zucchini, peas, tomatoes, strawberries and corn. But for many, especially on the East Coast of the United States, when October rolls around, it can feel like the most dramatic lifestyle change when produce isn’t as readily available.
While you may not get fresh summer produce all year round, there are many ways you can save the nutrient dense foods you collect. These 5 ways are sure to provide the many benefits of seasonal produce, even on the coldest days of the year:
The freezer is your best friend
Freezing produce can be tedious, but when done correctly, you can keep your summer produce until the following season, securing the flavor and nutrients for the winter. It is probably the easiest and most realistic option for most people.
When shopping at the farmers market, try and buy extra of your favorite produce. Most produce should be washed, dried and placed in freezer safe bags or containers. Some produce like leeks, beets, broccoli, brussels sprouts, corn, broccoli, and more do well if they’re blanched, then frozen.
Produce items that freeze well are:
herbs
fruit
leafy greens such as kale, beet tops and spinach
vegetables such as broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, cabbage, artichokes, eggplant, peas, peppers, beets, carrots etc.
squash such as zucchini, pumpkin, acorn, yellow, etc.
Produce items that don’t freeze well are:
delicate greens like arugula
high water vegetables like cucumber and lettuce
fennel
garlic
potatoes
radishes
swiss chard stems
tomatoes
Can it or turn it into jam
Canning is definitely more involved than freezing your produce, but often times you can save the produce that you can’t necessarily freeze with canning.
Canning is a process in which you preserve foods by placing them in a jar to heat at high temperatures, then let it cool to create a seal. When done correctly, foods that have been canned can last for years.
The humble tomato is a great example of this, as many people will can them to use in the winter for sauces, stews and soups.
You can also get creative with canning and develop certain flavor profiles, and a great example of this is with jam, preserves and jellies. Jams and jellies are typically made by cooking the fruit or vegetable with a thickening agent like pectin, and some add ins like sugar, spices and herbs. After cooking down, the produce gets placed into a jar to cool and seal.
Fruits work beautifully for this, but you can also create savory jams with your vegetables like peppers, onions and tomatoes as well.
Pickle it or ferment it
Fermentation is also a nuanced process. What makes fermentation different from canning is the lack of heat used to cook the vegetables, as well as the desire for the presence of healthy bacteria.
Fermentation in food refers to the process of lactic acid bacteria consuming the sugars and carbohydrates in whatever food you’re fermenting. Because of this, it produces acid and a tangy flavor.
A beginners guide is the best way to start the process of fermentation. Foods that can be fermented are vegetables like cabbage, kale, carrots, and beets. Some popular fermented foods that you can recreate are sauerkraut and kimchi.
If fermentation and canning are slightly daunting, pickling is another great place to start.
Pickled vegetables and fruits use a pickling liquid that is heated, which is then poured onto the produce, then sealed and stored for later use. You can pretty much pickle anything, but the common choices are onion, cucumber, and cabbage. It is similar to fermentation in terms of the flavor, as you’ll get a tangy taste. This taste is derived from the from the vinegar in the pickling liquid, rather than the bacteria apparent in the fermentation process.
Dry it
This option is most synonymous with herbs. You can dry every herb by a few different methods, those being air drying, dehydrating with a machine and oven drying. The easiest, however, is definitely air drying.
Simply tie herbs into 1-inch thick bundles, then hang them upside down until they dry out completely. For some herbs, you want to crumble the leaves only, like thyme, but for most you can crumble the whole thing up and store in a labeled air tight container for future use.
While dried herbs are always a good idea, you can also dry other produce like peppers, fruits and more.
Make your own dried peppers, dried mushrooms, and dried fruit pieces using a low temperature in your oven or with a dehydrator machine. You can then keep this produce whole, or grind it up to make flavorful powders for chilis, soups and sweet icings.
Dried herbs and produce essentially become flavor bombs for your recipes, leaving no winter meal drab and boring.
Don’t forget about fall and winter produce
In some areas on the East Coast, farms are open year round selling produce that not only grows in cooler climates but also lasts a long time outside of the spring and summer harvesting season, like apples, beets, cabbage, carrots, collards, and garlic. Try to hone in on this produce in the early months of winter for as long as you can, storing them to eat them all winter long. For example, beets and apples can last in the refrigerator crisper drawer for months.
Certain herbs can also grow in cooler climates, like sage, mint, thyme and oregano. Adding just a bit of these to your cooler-weather dishes can provide a bit of freshness that you once had in the summer time, so don’t under-estimate them.
Though sometimes spring and summer can feel so far out of touch in the coldest months, saving and prepping your produce in the ways that best serve you can truly make all the difference.
