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Whether you have a lawn or just stop shopping for groceries at farmers markets, preserving the culmination and vegetables is possibly less difficult than you think.
By Michael Sullivan
Mr. Sullivan is editor of Wirecutter, a product board owned by The New York Times Company.
As soon as I get used to the large piles of aromatic peaches and meaty berries from the farmers market, the summer season comes to an end and they’re gone. Turns out it happens in the blink of an eye.
Some gadgets may lie to nature legislation and maintain high-season summer products so they can be tested long after the end of the development season. Nothing fights my winter melancholy more than enjoying tasty peaches, cold and gray months.
If the word preservation evokes photographs of running in Mason jars in a sweltering kitchen, don’t worry. There are many tactics to keep food that require fewer paints safely than canning or house fermentation. Whether you need to turn berries into fruit leather, dried apple and mango slices or freeze an exceptional crop of tomatoes, this is the most productive device to keep food at home, regardless of skill level.
If you want to make fruit leathers, dry berries to plop in your morning cereal, or ensure that the herbs from your garden don’t go to waste, you’ll want a dehydrator. Although you can use your oven in a pinch, it can be hard to keep it at the sub-200-degree Fahrenheit temperatures necessary for drying. A dehydrator, which pushes hot air at a controlled temperature through several trays of food, is more efficient and consistent.
Keep in mind that although the dehydration procedure itself is mainly manual, preparing food for drying can be a tricky job as you will need to clean, peel and cut a mountain of products to get a decent performance. Dehydrators are also bulky, so they are not ideal for small kitchens.
However, passionate gardeners, hunters or anyone who buys new bulk products at farm stalls will gain advantages from the Gardenmaster Nesco FD-1018A dehydrator (approximately $110), comprising 8 food trays. In our tests, it dried everything lightly without the need to be monitored or rearranged to unload a uniform drying.
We also present the Samson Silent 6-tray dehydrator (about $115), which shuts down and can accommodate larger pieces, such as flowers. However, this style requires you to combine the trays in the middle of drying.
Vacuum sealing is one of the fastest and simplest tactics to maintain completion and fully ripe vegetables, whether you refrigerate or freeze them. It can also help dry completion and the nuts stay newer longer in the pantry. The maximum sealing of oxygen around food, slows down deterioration caused by aerobic bacterial growth. It also protects products from burns in the freezer, so those berries, peaches and nectarines still taste new when cooked on a cake months later.
It is to freeze the rainy fruit and produce it on baking sheets before feeding it into a vacuum, to prevent any liquid from being absorbed by the vacuum chamber, which could damage the machine.
The Anova Precision ANVS01-US00 vacuum sealer (about $80) is one of the quietest models I’ve tried and creates seals that can cope with the freezer for months. The narrow shape of the Anova also makes it easy to buy in a drawer, which is especially convenient in my small kitchen.
As noted above, the most productive way to freeze products, such as total peeled tomatoes, peach slices, bananas, berries or peas, is to spread them on a single layer on a baking sheet. Once frozen, you can vacuum seal or pack the ingredients in bulk, so they don’t end up like a forged brick in your freezer. If you plan to freeze high-water products, it’s more productive to align the baking trays with parchment paper first, to prevent them from sticking.
I have been a white paper-backed aluminum baker from Nordic Ware (about $12) in my kitchen for years. It can also be held on quarter and eighth leaf sheets, which I consider suitable for small-scale cooking or freezing tasks.
Unless you bake cans, you won’t want to spend a fortune on a luxury jam (a giant frying pan designed to advertise evaporation by baking jams and jellies). Any giant frying pan a few centimeters deep, such as Tramontina Gourmet’s 3-pint sautéing pan (about $65), can be used to make jam.
I’ve been cooking with Tramontina kitchen utensils in Wirecutter’s checkered kitchen for over 4 years, and its fully coated three-layer structure slightly distributes the heat, making the pan less prone to hot spots. The Deep Jumper is a flexible kitchen battery that can be used for more than just jam. It’s ideal for everything from stew to little frying.
Pro tip: When making thicker cans, such as apple butter, a splash-proof screen will keep your stove blank and prevent your arms and face from being sprayed with hot fruit while stirring.
To be able to safely jam, fruits and vegetables in the house through a pot in a double boiler (a frying pan with a lid giant enough to cover the jars with at least an inch of boiling water), you’ll want to purchase Mason jars. They can be held in a variety of sizes and their structure in 3 portions: a glass jar, a lid with a sealing compound and a thread band, is designed to keep food safe.
Although canning takes time, it’s rewarding because it allows you to customize the flavors to your liking. If you’re new to home preserves or want a recall, stop by the National Center for Home Food Conservation online page before you begin, to avoid any threat of foodborne illness.
If you don’t plan to make a double boiler, Mason bottles can still be used to counteract fermentation or to make your own spirits, such as limoncello.
A blender may not look like an apparent piece of preservation equipment, however, it’s the only tool that can make silky purees for fruit leather or fruit butters. It is also suitable for other purees such as pesto, which can pour into ice dice trays and freeze. The dice can be vacuum-packed or sealed and then used later for individual portions.
The top productivity blender we’ve tested is the Vitamix 5200, which is a favorite in many professional kitchens and juice bars. At around $440, the Vitamix is expensive, but its rugged engine purifies thick blends that maximum mixers can’t handle, and is covered by an impressive seven-year warranty. A less expensive option, such as the 5-speed KitchenAid diamond blender, as it’s tough but will do the job.
Want to learn more about the most productive things to buy and how to use them? Visit Wirecutter, where you can read the latest reviews and locate offers.
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