Pantry: Tomatoes, jams/jellies, dilly beans
Dry: Last leaves and flowers of summer Berries, Seeds, Leathers
Frozen: Whole berries, whole tomatoes, green beans, greens, summer squash with onion for creamy soup base.
Berries – Raspberries, blueberries, blackberries, and black raspberries all ripen in late summer. Essential for winter health for your body, mind and spirit. Your body and mind need berries because they are antioxidant, antiinflammatory, a source of vitamin C, contain flavonoids that keep you mentally sharp, and polyhpenolic compounds that prevent Alzheimer’s disease by cleaning up damaging toxins in your brain. Your spirit is healthier because they add interesting color and flavor to traditional winter foods.
Pantry: Jams and jellies. Mix and match or single flavored. Perfect for experimenting for flavors and spices. The trick to a clear jelly is not to squeeze the jelly drip bag. Be patient.
Dried: Dry indivually or as fruit leathers. I transfer the remains of the unsqueezed jelly bag directly to the fruit leather drying trays. No waste of summer flavors.
Freezer: Put individual berries on a parchment paper lined cookie sheet. Freeze until hard. Roll berries like marbles into a freezer bag. They don’t stick together.
Corn – Nothing says late summer like corn on the cob. Fun to eat and very good for you, especially your eyes. Packed full of vitamins and minerals you need all year round. Vitamins A, B, B1, betacarotene, carotenoids, lutein and zeaxanthin (reduces risk of macular degeneration and lessens development of cataracts). Also a great source of folic acid, folate (great for your heart), manganese, antioxidant, has phenolic compound and ferulic acid (fights breast and liver tumors), stabilizes blood sugar levels, anti-antherogenic lowers bad cholesterol, calcium, iron and potassium.
Pantry: Corn relish
Freezer: Parboil half cobs for two minutes, plunge into cold water to stop the cooking. put on cookie sheet then freeze. Put either the entire cob, or just the kernels, onto a parchment lined cookie sheet and freeze. Put into freezer bags as soon they are frozen solid.
Grape Leaves – This might be a surprise to many of you. These vitamin packed leaves are better for you than the grapes themselves. Very nearly a one a day vitamin in each serving. Vitamins C, E, A, K, B6, niacin, iron, fiber, riboflavin, folate, calcium, magnesium, copper and manganese. They are an anti-inflammatory food that reduces edema in a very tasty way. A tart green that cooks and stores easily.
Pantry: Blanche the greens, plunge into cold water to stop the cooking. Dry them as well as you can and put them into a jar of olive oil.
Freezer: After blanching put on a parchment lined cookie sheet and freeze until solid. Remove and store in a freezer bag.
Green Beans – This versatile, easy to grow, plentiful garden vegetable is a staple in most pantry/freezers. They contain protein, thiamine, riboflavin, niacin, calcium, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, copper, fiber, vitamins A, B6, C, and K, folate and manganese.
Pantry: Can them using a pressure cooker. Canned beans are versatile, but get a little boring when the winter begins to feel long. Beans absorb the flavors around them. A favorite, and interesting way to store them for the winter is as a pickle. Dilly Beans are a common side dish and delicious in the winter with stew.
Freezer: Parboil for two minutes, plunge into cold water and dry. Put on parchment lined cookie sheet and freeze until solid. Store in freezer bag.
Pumpkin Leaves – Another surprise to most people…until they try it. By late summer the pumpkin patch is sprawling with leaves and unripened pumpkins. To get bigger pumpkins, trim the vines to about a foot past the biggest pumpkin on the vine. trim the leaves into a basket. Better idea to eat them than wasting them on the compost pile. They are loaded with vitamins you need for the winter. The fine hairs that cover the leaves come off when you cook them. They contain iron, manganese, calcium, vitamins A, B6, C and E, magnesium, phosphorus, copper, fiber, protein, riboflavin, potassium, folic acid, niacin and thiamine.
Freezer: Blance in boiling water for two minutes, plunge into cold water to stop the cooking. Dry them off and put on parchment lined cookie sheet. Freeze until solid. Store loose in freezer bags. Use like spinach in soups, stews or by itself as a side dish.
Summer Squashes – The vitamins are in the skin. Don’t peel them. These plentiful vegetables contain vitamins A, B6, C and K, riboflavin, protein, thiamine, niacin, phosphorus, copper, fiber, folate, magnesium, potassium and manganese.
What to do with all that squash? It doesn’t take very many plants of zucchini or yellow summer squash to be overwhelmed with a harvest. Summer squash doesn’t keep as well winter squash. Hence the name. You eat it fresh during the summer, not winter. Freezing it by itself makes it kind of mushy. I was always told you have to use it fresh for the best flavor. Not so. There are many ways to store this for the winter. Just not as itself.
Pantry: Summer squash absorbs the flavors around it. It makes a very good pickled relish.
Freezer: This crop is most definitely the star of my freezer…in two ways. I never have leftovers in the spring. Make several batches of zucchini banana bread. Freeze the cooled loaves seperately, wrapped in aluminum foil then a freezer bag around that to protect from freezer burn. Instant dessert or breakfast treat throughout the winter.
The other freezer staple I make out of both zucchini and yellow summer squash is a creamy soup base. One green, one yellow Both are rare colors in the winter. Just thawing them out makes my eyes happy. Soup is a wonderful way to stay warm in the winter, but it’s time consuming. Heres a way to have any kind of creamy soup you like by just pulling out a container of soup base and adding anything you would like to it. Squash absorbs the flavors around it. This versatile recipe makes anything possible. There aren’t measurements because it depends on how much squash I need to use up.
Remove the seeds from the squash and cut into one inch chunks. Set aside. Cut up a third of that amount of onions. Soften the onions in olive oil. Add squash chunks, cover and cook slowly over medium/low heat until the squash is softened to a chunky mush. Salt to taste. Use a blending wand to whip it into a cream. Let cool. Put into two cup freezer storage containers and freeze. When you want to use it, thaw them out and season them in any way you want for either a colorful cream sauce or soup base. It makes incredible gravy as well.
Tomatoes – Eating fresh tomatoes is summer to me. Canning tomatoes is usually the focus of my harvest. The only limit is how time I have to process them…and how many jars I have to fill. I use a lot of tomatoes all winter. It is rare to have any left by spring. Cooked tomatoes have a different vitamin content than fresh ones. Canned tomatoes have fiber, calcium, iron, potassium, vitamins A and C.
Pantry: Stewed tomatoes, tomato sauce, tomato juice, ketchup, barbecue sauce, tomato paste, and salsa. The recipes for all of these are endless and all available online. No need for me to list all of them here. Dive in. Enjoy filling each jar with a winter blues busting flavor for soups, stews, chili, pasta dishes and as many condiments you have time and tomatoes to make. The sky is the limit for how to fill your shelves with these healthy treats.
Freezer: I freeze a few tubs of tomato sauce every year. The taste of fresh sauce is different than in the jars. It tastes more like a fresh tomato. Perfect during a blizzard as soup. I also freeze them whole. It simply doesn’t get easier than frozen tomatoes. Put whole tomatoes, skin on, uncored, onto a parchment lined cookie sheet. Freeze until hard. Put into storage bags. To thaw, run them under water. The skin falls off in your hand. The tomato that remains tastes exactly like it would when freshly picked. Remove seeds and use in pasta or by themselves as a stewed tomato.
Dried: Dried tomatoes are always a welcome pantry shelf item. Follow the directions on your dehydrator for time. Remember to remove the seeds. They dry a lot quicker that way. I prefer storing them in a jar with olive oil.
