In previous posts I have written about preserving through Winter, but I thought I might compile them all here in one spot. If you look out over the landscape in Winter, you may think there isn’t much to preserve, but if you sit back and really consider it, there are lots of food preserving opportunities…
Herbs
First, let’s look at preserving herbs in Winter. Dry whatever herbs you have around at the end of Autumn - I place herbs in baskets and leave them under the wood heater to dry thoroughly. A good place to start, using either fresh or dried herbs, is by making medicines, like tonics. Fire Cider and The 4 Thieves are immune tonics - they help strengthen your defences during the cold, cloudy months.
Stinging nettle (Utrtica dioica) comes up in the garden during the end of Winter, offering itself to us as a restorative. Nettle is such a nourishing herb full of vitamins and minerals (vitamins A, B, C, D, E, K and iron, potassium, phosphorus, silica, magnesium, manganese, cobalt, selenium, chromium, sodium). You can eat nettle as you would any other green, like silverbeet/chard; or you can dry it to use in teas.
Restorative Tea:
goji berries
nettle
orange peel
red clover
rose hips
oat straw
raspberry leaf
Use equal parts of each ingredient. Mix all ingredients together and store in a well-sealed glass jar. You can add other herbs as well, like Echinacea, plantain, dandelion leaf, liquorice (to make it sweet without using sugar), ginger, elderberries, hibiscus (will give it a beautiful pink color).
Nettle can also be used as a fertilizer for the garden. Make a ‘tea’ out of it as you would comfrey and pour it on the garden beds.
When your coriander is threatening to bolt, cut it off and use it to make Z’houg - a Middle Eastern alternative to pesto made with coriander, olive oil, chilies, garlic and salt (lemon juice if you like). Z’houg can be eaten with Middle Eastern, Indian and Mexican dishes. I make it large batches and freeze half cup to one cup portions in the freezer to use when it’s too hot to grow coriander.
Since calendula grows so well during the Winter months take advantage of that by drying as much as you can to use in teas, soaps and personal care products. As a tea calendula is great for gut health as it repairs intestinal permeability (aka leaky gut) and it can also be used to clean wounds and prevent infection (or to deal with the infection if things have gotten that far) or soothe red, irritated skin. I love calendula lip balm to heal chapped Winter lips.
Citrus
All Winter long I look out the kitchen window toward the citrus trees in the orchard - different kinds of lemons, mandarin, grapefruit, lemonade and various oranges. This view always makes me smile. I use a lot of citrus in my cooking, especially lemon juice. I juice the lemons and freeze the juice in icecube trays. Once frozen, I turn them out into bags or containers to store in the freezer for the year.
If you have lots of oranges, you can make an orange juice concentrate by cooking out the extra water in the juice, then freezing the concentrate in small containers. When you want OJ, you tip out the defrosted concentrate and add water, stir well and use.
If, like me, you enjoy Persian Love Cake (boiled orange cake), you can eat it all year long if you boil oranges for one hour, then puree them in batches of three and freeze. When you want to make a Persian Love Cake just defrost the previously boiled oranges and add to the rest of the ingredients. You can do the same with Lemonades. When I make a boiled lemonade cake I top it with traditional Cream Cheese Icing…you know, the one with tons of butter and cream cheese mixed with vanilla and honey!
Another way to preserve lemons to use all year long is by preserving them in salt, spices and lemon juice. It takes a few months for the lemons to soften, but one they do you can use them in any savour dish that calls for lemons. Alternatively, you can make Indian Lemon Pickles to have with dahl or curries.
Indian Lemon Pickle
Ingredients:
500g/1lb lemons
½ t turmeric
2T salt
1/2t fenugreek
1 t mustard seeds
½ T chilli powder
2 T olive oil
Method:
Cut all your lemons in quarters, longways. Place them in a pan and cover with water. Bring them to a boil for 10 minutes. Drain and allow to cool enough to handle.
Quarter each of the lemons and remove the seeds. Place lemon peels in a glass jar along with the turmeric and salt; place the lid on well. Shake each day for a week.
Add spices to the mixture and store in glass jars – push the lemon peels down well. Cover with olive oil and store in the fridge.
Should last a year or more if kept in cold storage.
Alliums
If you have garlic left around that is starting to sprout you can use it in ferments, like kimchi or you can make a garlic confit - gently bake it covered in olive oil, then store in the fridge until you need it. Fermented honey garlic is another option - it works well to ward off Winter colds and flu.
Onion bulbs tend to sprout this time of year, too. Before they do, make a batch of caramelised onions (add beetroot/beets, too, if yo uhave some in the garden) - they are good on just about everything. French onion soup is another way to use up lots of onions that are hanging around.
Turmeric
Turmeric is so good for you -it decreases inflammation and, therefore, pain (make a tea with ginger and turmeric specifically for pain), it improves memory and acts as an antioxidant. My favorite way to preserve turmeric is to ferment it. I like this recipe (from Louise Hay) as it allows you to store the turmeric in the fridge for much longer than you would normaly be able to.
Chop turmeric and a bit of ginger, then place in a glass jar. Cover with salt water (that is as salty as the ocean). Place a piece of cheesecloth over the mouth of the jar and secure it with a rubber band. Leave to ferment for a 3 - 4 weeks. Then strain some of the liquid off into another jar, then place the turmeric and ginger in a food processor and puree. Add more of the leftover water if it is too dry. Add fresh ground pepper and honey (optional). Store in a glass jar in the fridge. Use as you would fresh or powdered turmeric. I add it to my daily cup of bone broth.
Cabbages, bok choy, Brussel sprouts, etc.
All of these can be fermented to make sauerkraut and kimchi. You can also ferment whole heads of cabbage, like the Croatian Kiseli Kupus. To make it, you place a cabbage or two in a large crock, jar or food-grade plastic tub along with some garlic, red capsicum/bell pepper, a couple chilies, horseradish (or regular radish) and a couple bay leaves. Cover all the vegetables with a salt brine and place a small plate plate over the cabbage to weigh it down under the water. It will be ready after a couple months (the total time will depend on how dense your cabbage is). Once it’s finished fermenting, use the whole leaves to stuff with salads, pickles, cheeses, meats, etc. They are a wonderful bread or cracker substitute.
Root Vegetables
Root vegetables like carrot, diakon radish, swede/rutabaga, turnips and beets/beetroot can all be lacto-fermented in the Winter. As with any ferment, you chop the veg and place it in a glass jar then cover with a salt brine. You can add seasoning such as garlic, bay leaves, peppercorns and oregano to the mixture if you like. Place a lid on the jar and leave in a warm place for 1-2 weeks depending on the texture (crispness) you desire. Store in the fridge or in a cold place under the house (in the root cellar).
Extra beets can be used to make beet kvass, an iron-rich tonic. Chop a handful or two of fresh beets/beetroots, place them in a litre/quart jar of salt brine (as salty as the ocean) and put the lid on. Allow the mixture to sit at room temperature for 1 - 2 weeks depending on the temperature (ferments will be more vigorous in the warmer months). Strain out the beets (keep them to eat in salads or start another batch of kvass with them) and store the liquid in a glass jar in the fridge. Take a shot each day to cleanse the blood and the liver.
Foraged Items
In most places there will still be wild greens to collect - plantain, dandelion greens, chickweed, mallow, cleavers, nettle, etc. After a walk around the garden or park you should have enough wild greens to make pesto or verdurtte (a salty vegetable stock seasoning similar to bouillon).
You can also dry your wild green to use in teas. Plantain can be added to calendula tea to assist in healing the gut.
All of these greens can be added to eggs dishes, stews, anywhere you would add greens from the garden. They can be bitter though, so you may want to mix them with spinach, silverbeet/chard or kale. Mallow tends to thicken foods, so be careful how much you add.
Another way to preserve wild greens (and culinary herbs, too) is to chop them and mix with olive oil, then freeze in ice cube trays. Once frozen, turn the cubes out into plastic bags or storage containers and keep in the freezer until needed.
Pumpkin
Now is the time to use up any pumpkins that are still around. I like to roast them, remove the skins and freeze in batches to use for pumpkin soup, pumpkin pie and dog food (yes, my dog loves pumpkin!). Alternatively, you can grate raw pumpkin and store in 1-cup portions in the freezer to add to breads, fritters, etc.
Spiced Pumpkin Soup
coconut oil
onion, diced
previously roasted pumpkin
chicken, beef or vegetable stock
coconut cream
seasoning - Thai red curry, Indian curry powder or Pumpkin Pie Spice mix
fresh herbs (optional)
Sautee onions in hot oil for about 5 minutes (this is the longest part of the recipe), but be careful they don’t burn. Add roasted pumpkin, stock and seasoning. Puree with a hand-held mixer or in a blender in batches - do this before the soup gets too hot to handle. Once pureed to your liking, place the soup back on the heat and add the coconut cream but be careful not to boil rapidly as the cream will split. Serve once it’s hot.
As for the spices you add, pumpkin pairs well with curry flavors, but also with warming spices like cinnamon, cardamom and clove. Add a handful of fresh coriander leaves to your soup if using curry spices; add a sprinkling of nutmeg to each serve if you are using warming spices.
Of course, you could always make pumpkin pie, pumpkin souffle or pumkin casseroles with your roasted pumpkins instead.
Bone Broth
Winter is a great time to make broth/stock since things are a bit quiter in the garden. People often ask is the bones have to be roasted, and the simple answer is “no” - if you want a clear broth then you do need to roast your bones as raw bones will create a cloudy-looking broth. This is a matter of aesthetics really.
You can add vegetable scraps and seasoning to your broth if you want - carrots, garlic, onions, celery, bay leaves, peppercorns, etc. I always add different kinds of mushrooms like shiitake and culinary mushrooms, as well as different kinds of seaweeds - arame and wakame. To make your broth more medicinal you can add ginseng, ashwagandha or other herbs. I add chicken feet to my broths even if I’m using beef or venison bones. Apple cider vinegar or lemon juice added to your stock will help pull the minerals out of the bones. The one thing I do not add to my broth is salt, I do this later, when cooking.
You can also make a very gelatinous broth that doesn’t have much flavor to use in things like icy poles/popsicle, cakes, breads, etc. To do this, use gelatin/collagen-rich items like trotters.
You can slow-cook your broth on the wood heater if you have one, on the gas/electric range, in a pressure cooker or in a slow cooker. Portion out the stock in 1 or 2 liter containers and freeze for later. Alternatively, you can pressure can your stock so it is shelf-stable.
Use your stock wherever you would normally add water - soups/stews, to cook beans and grains, in gravy, etc. Or drink it as a tea with salt, lemon juice and a pinch of cumin.
Plan your Summer garden, start seedlings, fertilize, etc.
Now is a good time to plan your garden for the year ahead, purchase seeds and any other items you need. Also, prune, fertilize and mulch your fruit trees. Start your Spring/Summer seedings in trays and keep them in a warm place to germinate. Once they are too large for the tray move them to individual pots to allow them to become larger and more robust before planting them out.
I hope these preserving ideas help you to feel the abundance of Winter -
N x
Thank you for putting this together and sharing it :-) We'll try some of these once settled. Also, need to adjust storing methods for warmer, more humid climates...