A Well-Stocked Pantry

As I write this, two crockpots are bubbling away in my kitchen, full of fruit butter: apple and apple-plum***.  It's my first attempt at canning, and things are not going well; one of my crockpots runs too hot and burned the plain apple butter.  It's not so bad that we can't eat it, so I suppose that it will just go into the refrigerator.  The apple-plum butter is good... but I didn't have enough plums to make a big batch.  There isn't enough of it to justify lugging out the canning equipment.

Tomatoes and Dragon Tongue Beans hanging from the rafters

I'm trying to satisfy that urge which I think lies latent in all of us, and that is to ensure that the pantry is well-stocked for the winter.  When we planted our first seeds in the spring, my husband and I had visions of overflowing harvest, and an autumn and winter of home-grown comfort.  Alas, that season of bounty never materialized.  A combination of rocky, depleted soil, and really bad weather meant that there were never enough cucumbers to pickle (except for the small batch of freezer pickles I put up), no brussel sprouts, no rutabagas, no winter squash, no pumpkins, no beets, no broccoli, no cauliflower, and I forgot to plant turnips.  I planted Belgian Endive in the hopes of bringing it inside in the fall to blanch in the dark, but none of it even came up.  My husband thought the escarole plants were weeds and pulled them.

Some day I hope to have a pantry with "shelves on both sides... loaded with good things to eat.  Big yellow cheeses were stacked there, and large brown cakes of maple sugar, and there were crusty loaves of fresh-baked bread, and four large cakes, and one whole shelf full of pies."  And in the fall, I hope to stock it well so that we can have winterttime meals like this:

"Almanzo ate the sweet, mellow baked beans.  He ate the bit of salt pork that melted like cream in his mouth.  He ate mealy boiled potatoes, with brown ham-gravy.  He ate the ham.  He bit deep into velvety bread spread with sleek butter, and he ate the crisp, golden crust.  He demolished a tall heap of pale mashed turnips, and a hill of stewed yellow pumpkin.  Then he sighed, and tucked his napkin deeper into the neckband of his red waist.  And he ate plum preserves and strawberry jam and grape jelly, and spiced watermelon-rind pickles.  He felt very comfortable inside.  Slowly he ate a large piece of pumpkin pie."

Of course, if I routinely ate as much as Almanzo does in Farmerboy I'd weigh 500 pounds.  But one can always have ideals.

Potatoes in basement storage (varieties Yukon Gold, Caribe, Butte, and Rose Finn Apple fingerlings)

Our modest first attempt at a fall pantry includes:

• 2 quarts of lime-dill freezer pickles
• 15 quarts of frozen green beans
• 2 quarts of frozen corn
• 4 buckets of potatoes, each a quarter full (the potatoes are buried in sand)
• a mesh bag of homegrown garlic, hanging on the pantry door
• 14 frozen free-range chickens, from a farmer about 2 miles away
• steaks and stew meat from the quarter side of grass-fed beef we bought from the same farmer back in July (we're hoping he'll have more beef soon)
• a bushel of apples waiting to be made into applesauce, or to be pared, sliced, and frozen for apple pies
• 1 canister of dried kidney beans
• 1 canister of dried dragon tongue beans
• a pitiful amount of black-eyed peas, which we may use as seed next year
• eight tomato plants, hung by their roots in the outer garage so that (hopefully) the green tomatoes will have a chance to ripen (or be fried green or pickled)
• 1 fall garden (in need of some floating row covers!), planted in peas, beets, spinach, radishes, and lettuce... and hopefully a few carrots ready for harvest by now.

Pea plants in bloom

Lettuce grows best in cool weather, and can germinate in soil as cold as 45 degrees

Fall is also time to plan for next year's pantry.  My garlic should be arriving any day now.  I'll plant it in October and harvest in July or August.  The strawberries need to be mulched so they'll survive the winter and give us berries for jam next June.  The fruit trees and berry bushes also need to be cared for; then we'll have raspberries, blueberries, lingonberries, and blackberries next year, and apples, pears, peaches, grapes, and perhaps even nectarines and apricots (we pray!) several years down the road.  And we'll spread compost on the garden and leave the green manures, to build the soil for next year.

A fall bonus... raspberries on plants that shouldn't have borne this year!

(Here are some resources to enjoy if you're a pantry beginner like me -- or even if you're not):

The Encyclopedia of Country Wisdom

The Joy of Pickling: 200 Flavor-Packed Recipes for All Kinds of Produce from Garden or Market

Putting Food By

Crockpot Apple Butter recipes

Lehman's Non-Electric Catalog

***My apple-plum butter wasn't made to exact specifications.  Instead I followed the guidelines given in The Encyclopedia of Country Wisdom.  Use 2-3 times as many apples as plums (I used a mixture of apples, including Macintosh, Courtland, Spartamac, Pound Sweet, and Jersey Mac.  The plums were Green Gages.)  Peel and slice the apples, but just chop up the plums.  Put the heap in your crockpot and cook on low until really soft -- 10-12 hours, so overnight works well.  When it's soft, press it through a colander with a potato masher (or run it through a foodmill if you're fancy), and put it back in the crockpot.  Then add sweetening and spices.  For a small crockpot, I used 2 cups of sugar, but I think it's too sweet.  I'll use less next time.  Cinnamon and cloves in a ratio of 2:1; if you use 1 tsp. cinnamon, use 1/2 tsp of cloves.  At this point, I cooked the mixture on low for about four hours, then took off the lid and cooked it on high for another two.  These times are all approximate, though.  Just keep an eye on your crockpot and let the butter cook until you think it's thick enough.  It should be a rich brown color, but if it's really dark, that means it's burnt.     

Comments

[Alice]

What you have done is more than I could ever hope to accomplish in the way of growing, gathering, and preserving. Do not be disappointed. Your efforts have succeeded in my book.

[Kim]

I am a bit discouraged by our gardening efforts for the same reasons you listed. A neighbor has had good luck with a portable hothouse of sorts - 5gal buckets with dowels in the sides coming out at the tops a foot. Then plastic wrapped around the dowels to break the wind and hold in the heat. Will try next year.

I would love to learn to can meat for soup and stews. Or to can ANYthing without fear of poisoning people. Be pleased! We are all impressed!

[Jennifer]

It sounds lovely, regardless of quantity. Our weather has been just as poorly suited to a large harvest and I canned nothing this year. But the thought of baskets full of tomatoes keeps me going through January. :) I would love to see the apple-plum recipe... If you had time....

[Jennifer]

Thanks so much. That sounds perfect for this weekend. I love your recipe style - it's just like mine.

[Margaret in Minnesota]

We're listening to Farmer Boy right now and your comments about his appetite made me laugh out loud! Indeed, that boy can really pack it away! I think his loving wife was trying to illustrate the many ways in which this little boy became a man...and what a loving tribute was that book.

Beautiful post, although I don't for a minute believe that you're a "pantry beginner"!

[Marjorie]

What a glorious harvest! I am so jealous - in a positive way :-) We have 2 acres of woodand and only enough sun to grow herb container gardens on the back deck. Mushrooms - yes, tomatoes, alas, no. I would love to try garlic on my deck. Where do you get your garlic?

[Jenn Miller]

You have completely inspired me. I'm a city gal and have no experience of canning or preserving, so I'm in awe of you putting by ANYTHING. It seems like so much to me! I love how you worked in quotes from Farmer Boy, this season just brings that book to mind.

My favorite picture is the food in the rafters. I always love that look!

[Angel]

Becca -- I ordered my garlic this year from Seeds of Change.(http://seedsofchange.com) At least I'm pretty sure I ordered it... seems like it should be getting here soon... I'm starting to get a little nervous now, though. If it takes too long to ship, the ground will be frozen!!

[Angel]

Jenn -- well, I still haven't put anything in jars ;-). Like Kim, I'm nervous about canning because I don't want to kill anyone! Sticking to water-bath canning pickles and fruit makes me feel a little safer... or it would if I had been able to do any canning this year. Probably our miniscule harvest was a blessing in disguise, though, as it would have been hard to keep up with it and the babies, too.

[Dawn]

Such bountiful blessings, Angel! How wonderful for your family. :)