Tiny Tip: Test Your Pressure Canner

Did you know that if you live in the US and use a pressure canner, you can probably have the accuracy of the pressure gauge tested for free? Neither did I until I read Sharon Astyk's latest work, Independence Days: A Guide to Sustainable Food Storage & Preservation. Like her earlier works, this one is excellent and contains tons of useful information for those who preserve their own foods. That's how I found out there's another way I can make good use of the state taxes we pay. The Cooperative Extension offices in most counties of the US will have someone on staff with the equipment and know-how to test a pressure canner. And they'll do this for you for free.

I got my pressure canners for free through craigslist, and they are obviously old and well used. Though I replaced some of the rubber parts that came with the canners, I had no way of testing how accurate the pressure gauges were for myself. Having now had them tested, I know that both of them read a little high around the 10 and 15 pound mark. That means I've been canning my foods at pressures that are slightly lower than recommended.

The woman who tested the canner gauges for me said that if I followed all other canning instructions to the T, I'm probably fine eating those foods. My gauges were only off by one half to one pound. (I know that with almost every canning batch I've had trouble not overshooting the recommended pressure at some point during the canning process anyway.) She said it's fine to keep using the pressure canners so long as I correct for the slightly faulty readings on my gauges.

It's good to know this about my pressure canners. If you use a pressure canner to store food for your family, I recommend you take advantage of this free testing service. After all, there's no point in preserving your own food if you can't be confident you can do so safely. With the gardening season mostly done for the year, this would be a good time have the testing done. Just so you know, you probably only need to take the lid to the Extension office, not the entire canner. But check with the person who does the testing to make sure.

More tiny tips.

Gobsmacked by the Implications

So I've been edging closer to lacto-fermentation as a preservation method. There are still some nice looking cabbages out there in my garden. And though significant work has been done on turning a corner of our basement into a root cellar (I know, I haven't posted about this before), we haven't had any properly frigid weather to bring it down to a good temperature, and truth be told it still needs work. The thing that's kept me at arm's length from lacto-fermented products is that I don't like pickles or briny-tasting things. I can't stand olives or capers, and have never understood the appeal of pickled cukes. I've revisited these particular disliked foods and tried to have an open mind, and just found that I really genuinely dislike these things. That said, I have enjoyed kim chi in the past, and I love pickled ginger. So it seems to me that there's some room for optimism that I can make this method of preservation work for us.

Why would I even contemplate trying to work around firmly entrenched food aversions of mine? Well, there are some pretty impressive upsides to lacto-fermentation. For one thing, it's just about the lowest energy-input form of food preservation. You don't need to heat or significantly chill the food being preserved; a cool room will suffice. Over and above that though, lacto-fermentation is the only form of food preservation that gives you a product with more nutrients than the raw food contains. How does that work? The microorganisms doing the lacto-fermentation partially breakdown the food and in the process make more nutrients available to us than our own digestive systems can manage alone. The icing on the cake is that those microorganisms also create narrow-spectrum antibiotics that protect us from a handful of the most common food borne illness culprits (e. coli, listeria, clostridium). So when you eat lacto-fermented foods, you're protected in multiple ways from dietary related illness.

So here's where the wheels in my brain really started spinning. Say you're a nutcase like me, and you're trying to provide as much of your own food as possible on a fairly limited amount of land. You have two challenges: produce enough calories, and produce enough nutrients. Most garden plants give you nutrients, but not too many calories. In order to provide both nutrients and calories you must allocate garden space to crops that supply these two different needs. Lacto-fermentation shifts the space requirements for these two goals.

Let's say, for simplicity's sake, that you divide your 1000 square foot garden into two equal parts: one devoted to cabbage, and the other devoted to potatoes. Cabbages provide excellent nutrition (as well as fiber, by the way), while potatoes are an excellent calorie crop. Let's also say that you can technically meet your family's nutritional needs for the year with 500 square feet of cabbage. But perhaps 500 square feet of potatoes will only provide 40% of the calories needed to feed your family each year. If you can double the nutrition provided by cabbage through lacto-fermentation, you could sacrifice half the garden space given over to this crop without jeopardizing the nutrient needs of your family. If you give that space over to calorie crops, you could get that much closer to self-sufficiency.

My numbers here are entirely hypothetical. I don't know how exactly how much more nutrition results from lacto-fermentation. It probably varies by the vegetable or fruit that is lacto-fermented. Nor do I know how much space is needed to produce 40% of an adult's caloric needs in potatoes. But what's clear is that lacto-fermentation is an important tool that could allow some garden space to be reallocated to calorie crops without sacrificing all-important nutrition. The implications of this are potentially huge for those producing food on small plots of land. More nutrition from the same space, or the same nutrition from less space. I firmly believe that finding ways of increasing food production on - and food value from - small spaces is going to be critically important to future generations.

I'm going to try really hard to find lacto-fermented foods I enjoy eating. I'll start today with a homegrown head (or two) of cabbage, and will post later on how it goes. I plan to explore this method of food preservation over the next year. An acquaintance of mine fairly rhapsodized about a sauerkraut her mother used to buy from a Jewish market that included fresh cranberries and was seasoned with caraway. That sounds delicious to me! If you have any tried and true recipes for lacto-fermented vegetables (especially cabbage), I'd love it if you'd share them or point to them in the comments. And wish me luck!

Tiny Tip: Repurpose Your Credit Card

I thought it would be appropriate to mention this tiny tip this month, since February's Alternative Action Item is to bake bread. And many people out there are getting rid of credit cards or having the accounts close on them. That little piece of plastic may have been the bane of your existence, a temptation as potent as a drug, that has gotten you into a financial mess. It's a good thing to retire a credit card or two. But that doesn't mean the card itself is worthless to you. It need not end up in a landfill.

Instead, you can repurpose that stiff little piece of plastic into a baking tool. Bakers often need something to scrape dough off a wooden work surface, or off the inside of a container. The tool is called, appropriately enough, a dough scraper. Baker's supply catalogs will sell you specially made ones with extra features for $10. But really, all that's needed is a stiff, but somewhat flexible piece of plastic, curved on one side and straight on the other. The ones you can buy are bigger than a credit card, but there's no reason you can't work with a smaller version that fits neatly in your hand. And because you can make as many as you want from old membership cards and credit cards, it's possible to have a very large supply of them for baking day. An ordinary but sharp pair of scissors is all that's needed to make these hacked scrapers.

Using a homemade dough scraper made from retired spending enablers to bake your own bread is a great way to triple up your savings while increasing your self-sufficiency. It's a nice feeling to know that I can be a proficient baker without needing to spend money on specialized equipment. And it's feels good to keep another piece of plastic out of the landfill too.

Got any other tool hacks or repurposing stories you'd like to share?

More tiny tips: More Sunlight in Your Garden, Parboil Your Pasta, Make the Most of Old Man Winter, Broccoli Stalk, Scallions

An Unlikely Frugal Kitchen Tool

One of the least obvious frugal tools in my kitchen is the humble plastic ice cube tray. I keep several of these around to use whenever I have a surplus of several different kinds of food. By freezing stocks, sauces, fresh herbs and even some soups, I save up what I can't use immediately in a stable form and a convenient size. This lets me buy some items in quantities much, much larger than my two-person household would otherwise be able to use.

For instance, there's a particular tomato sauce that I like to use on our homemade pizzas. I first came across it in an expensive antipasto bar at our local upscale grocery store. I soon identified the brand of sauce that they were selling and sourced it from an Italian deli/grocery store. The cans were large, but the price was great. So I opened the can and used just what we needed for our dinner. Then I filled three ice cube trays full of tomato sauce for three days running. I ended up with frozen cubes of tomato sauce, which lets us thaw just a tiny bit of sauce at a time, just enough to lightly sauce our pizza pies. I store these in a ziploc bag in the freezer.

I've done the same with coconut milk. Cans of coconut milk inevitably seem to contain more than my recipes call for. Rather than trying to come up with an additional use for the remaining milk, I just freeze what's left over. Same goes for chicken and beef broth or any leftover cooking liquid. The size of the frozen cubes makes it easy to garnish with small quantities. I've also used frozen cubes of broth to rapidly cool down soups that need to be refrigerated. I try to prepare the soup with a little less liquid than called for when I want to do this. So when the cubes melt, I don't have soup that's too thin. When storing broths this way, or anything that looks less distinctive than tomato sauce, I label the bag so I can easily distinguish between beef broth and chicken broth. It saves rummaging around in the freezer and letting out too much cold air.

One of the less intuitive uses for the ice cube tray as a stocking up tool is preserving fresh herbs. When basil is in season, I grow a lot of it, clean it, chiffonade the leaves and pack them tightly into the compartments of a tray. Then I cover them with olive oil and freeze. The cubes of oil and herbs make a great accompaniment to meats, some soups, pasta dishes and of course, pizzas. Naturally, frozen "fresh" herbs aren't quite as good as the real thing. But it's better than letting anything go to waste, paying through the nose when it's out of season, or worst of all, going completely without the taste of basil in the winter. I try to match the oils with the herbs. Olive oil goes with parsley, basil and sage. Canola oil goes with Thai basil, mint and cilantro.

Hope you found this tip useful!

Sometimes it pays to spend a little money

While the point of frugality is usually to avoid spending money, there are some good frugal tool investments that are worth spending on, because they really do save you money in the long run. Of course, I'm going to recommend that you pick up as many of these items second-hand as possible. Many tools are just as good used as brand new.

For any number of kitchen applications, rubber spatulas are a frugalite's friend. Spatulas help you get an extra few tablespoons of sauce, the last of that soup, and an extra muffin's worth of batter. A good rubber spatula will last for years and help you waste not, want not in the kitchen. I like the Kitchen Aid spatula. I have a couple of these in my kitchen.

A food processor is a great frugal kitchen tool, provided that it actually gets used on a regular basis. This tool can mean the difference between tiresome drudgery and quick preparation time for many foods. I most often use my food processor to grate large blocks of cheese so that they can be frozen to use on homemade pizza at a later date. True, I could get out my hand grater and do it all with elbow grease, thereby saving a few pennies in electricity. But if I knew that I'd have to grate it all by hand, I'd be much less likely to stock up on cheese when I found a good deal. The same goes for preparing large batches of morning glory muffins. Grating a couple pounds of carrots and apples takes seconds rather than half an hour with a food processor. So this is a tool that helps and encourages me to make good frugal choices in both shopping and cooking. Some bakers also use a food processor to knead their dough. I sometimes use mine to puree sauces and soups. You don't need a very fancy food processor, nor a new one, to get good results. For those making a real commitment to a frugal lifestyle, I think a food processor is a worthwhile investment.

A Chest freezer is a great thing to have in the basement or in the garage. If you own your home and have the space, think seriously about investing in a freezer. It will allow you to stock up on all sorts of food when there's a good sale, or when produce is in season. This is one item that you should probably buy new. Chest freezers are more efficient than other kinds of freezers for one very simple reason. The cold air won't spill out of them when you open the door. And the efficiency of freezers has improved so much over the years that you will quickly recoup your costs for a new freezer as compared with an old one by virtue of the lower electrical bill. Look for the EnergyStar label as you do your shopping research.

Durable, re-usable food containers - these are essential items for any frugal home. Use them to store leftovers and to pack lunches for work or school. They are sturdier and more cost-effective than disposable plastic bags. They come in a variety of shapes to suit sandwiches, fruits and vegetables, and even soups. Ziploc brand has some good screw-top lid containers that I've used to pack soup in checked luggage on an airplane. I've never had a spill with these, though I continue to double bag them. The brand is much less important than having a plentiful supply of these around. You can even save yogurt containers and the like to use for leftovers. Just don't forget what's in those opaque containers. If you tend to the out-of-sight, out-of-mind school of leftover management, as I do, it may be better to store your food in clear plastic containers or bags - even if you have to pay for those containers.

Other basic kitchen tools are needed to do any serious amount of cooking. And cooking is one of the irreplaceable frugal skills. So make sure that your kitchen contains a working version of a colander, paring knife, chef's knife, wooden spoons, chopping board, mixing bowls, measuring cups and spoons, and a set of good-quality cooking pots. Without these and other staples of the kitchen countertop, you'll be hard pressed to prepare your meals at home. Going without basic kitchen tools is a false economy if you end up ordering takeout because you can't face the task of preparing a thrifty meal in a frustratingly under-equipped kitchen.

No household should be without basic hardware tools. Whether you rent or own your home, you'll eventually need a hammer, screwdriver, wrench, measuring tape and probably a wrench and a pair of pliers. Sears Craftsman tools are guaranteed forever, and can often be found at garage sales. I remember a story about a young woman who was given a basic set of Craftsman tools by her practical father when she went off to college. Before he gave them to her, he painted all of them pink. She objected mildly to this, because she wasn't exactly a girly girl sort. Her father reassured her that the color was not a means of accessorizing, nor feminizing the tools. Instead, it was insurance that she'd always have her tools returned to her when they were borrowed, especially by men. Sure enough, not one of her tools ever disappeared after being borrowed. Many years later, she still had the same set.

I'm going to go ahead and recommend a hot glue gun, even though I'm somewhat on the fence about this tool. I haven't had mine all that long, but I have gotten a good amount of use out of it. I don't do a lot of crafts. I suspect that crafty sorts and parents who like to keep their kids busy with creative projects would find this tool enormously useful. I find mine great for a myriad simple repair jobs and the few crafts projects I've tackled. If this tool makes sense in your frugal life, then by all means pick one up.

A hot water bottle is your friend if you live where the winters are cold. A good frugal housekeeper knows that it's cheaper to keep a small spot warm than to heat a whole house. If you have time during the day when you have to sit still for hours on end (homework, writing, research), you know how hard it can be to stay warm in a house with the thermostat set to 63 degrees. Invest in a hot water bottle for each family member. Make simple cloth covers for each one out of old clothes or an old comforter. The covers keep the bottle hot longer, and also help keep you from getting burned on the hot surface. When your water bottle wears out, it makes a good kneeling pad for garden work. It'll keep your pants cleaner and you can put a little sand in it to cushion your knees.