Ready, Set, Preserve!

Canning, pickling, air-drying: It’s time to fill up your stocks. Late summer and early autumn provide us with a variety of fresh ingredients like mushrooms, fruits and vegetables. This makes it the perfect time to preserve and fill up your pantry to make sure your fall harvest lasts through winter.

The last warm rays of sunshine, trees embellished with red and golden leaves, the special smell in the air – some of us would love to preserve this autumn magic. What if we told you that’s possible, at least in a culinary way? The answer is simple: By preserving the rich summer and autumn harvest for the cold time ahead. This gives you access to the taste of summer and autumn on your plate whenever you feel like it.

With some easy methods you can preserve almost any kind of fresh ingredient that you bought at your local farmer’s market or whatever you harvested yourself. In late summer and early autumn, a family walk in the forest can turn into a real treasure hunt for mushrooms, nuts and fruit.

Here are the most common ways to preserve fresh ingredients and make sure to make the most of them.

Salting, drying, fermenting – some of the oldest methods of food preservation have been practiced by humans for thousands of years. Some of them we still use today. Industrialisation has enabled the development of additional methods such as canning, freezing or vacuum sealing, making food preservation as simple and effective as can be.

Freezing and vacuum sealing are the best options if you want to extend your foods’ shelf life and preserve its original condition – without any effect on its original taste. Canning or pickling, however, gives your ingredients a new spin by transforming their texture and adding a delicious sour, oily, or salty aroma.

Here’s all you need to know about the various methods of food preservation.

An easy and delicious way of preserving any kind of berries or fruit is preparing jams, chutneys, or jellies and preserving them in airtight containers or glasses. When preparing your own spread, you set the rules. You feel like adding some vanilla or cinnamon to your plum jam or you want to keep some whole fruit in it? Want to prepare a quince jelly out of leftover fruit or boil apples into fine apple sauce? It’s completely up to you. You can get creative and experiment with different combinations of fruit, flavours and ingredients. Filled into clean and germ-free glasses and stored in a cool dark place, you can consume your self-made jam or chutney within up to two years – provided it survives your hungry family members for that long. Moreover, self-made jams and chutneys are perfect small presents to bring when you are invited to a dinner party or birthday brunch.

1. Choose ingredients and cut them into pieces.
2. Place them into a big pot. Depending on the recipe, this is the right time to add sugar, salt or vinegar as well as spices.
3. Bring to a boil, stir every now and again and keep heated until the mass reaches the preferred consistency.
4. Prepare glasses and lids by running them through boiling water to make them germ-free.
5. Pour the hot mass into the glasses, making sure the edges are clean and close the lid right away.

Since both the glasses and the content get really hot during the process, potential germs get killed. Additionally, a vacuum builds up during the heating and cooling process, making the content long-lasting.

Ever tried to make apple crisps with cinnamon? Or dried herbs to make them last? Air-drying is a simple yet effective way to remove moisture from fresh foods to keep them edible for longer. Air-drying prevents the development and growth of bacteria and mold. All you need is an oven or a dehydrator. The appliances need to operate at rather low temperatures. Depending on the food, it requires constant temperature ranging between 40 and 70 degrees Celsius and can take a number of hours. The results are definitely worth the wait.

With this method, leftover fruits can become tasty and healthy snacks. Simply cut your chosen fruit such as apples or pears into thin slices and place them inside your dehydrator and wait until they’re dry. Ta-da! Your delicious and healthy fruit crisps are ready for snack-time.

Air-drying is a convenient way to preserve your garden or balcony herbs before the first frost can deprive them of all liveliness and taste. All we need is our herbs and a piece of yarn. Simply wrap the yarn around the stems and hang them up-side-down at room temperature. It really doesn't get any easier. Actually… The easiest way to have access to fresh herbs all year is with the Bosch Indoor Gardening System SmartGrow .

Vinegar, oil, salt – there are different ingredients you can use to preserve food through pickling. The most common pickling-examples are pickles or gherkins. Which preservative to choose depends on the ingredients and the flavour you want to give your food. This is your chance to get creative by experimenting with the different techniques and mixtures to find out what makes your tastebuds the happiest.

When using vinegar, you simply need to boil water with vinegar and fill it into glasses while still hot – together with the ingredients that you want to pickle. Make sure to use a high-quality vinegar with at least five percent vinegar acid to prevent bacteria growth inside the glasses.

Same holds true for oil pickling: Make sure to only use high-quality oil and precook the ingredients you want to pickle, since the oil will only cover but not preserve the ingredients. This method is the perfect solution to preserve freshly harvested peppers, tomatoes and other garden vegetables. To give your oil-pickled veggies a special Mediterranean touch, add some fresh or dried herbs. Ready are your first delicious, self-made antipasti.

Finally, you can pickle fresh ingredients by brining. To do so, boil water with salt and a bit of vinegar or lemon juice. Afterwards, let the mixture cool down and fill it into glasses until it fully covers the contents and close the lid. Now, we need some patience: For best results, your pickled food should infuse for at least four to six weeks. Food pickled in oil and brine should be consumed within the next three to four months, while ingredients pickled in vinegar will be good for about six months.

Overwhelmed by your mushroom harvest and the many liters of mushroom soup? Your garden courgettes are starting to pile up? You prepared more smoothie than you can drink? Vacuum seeling might be the suitable solution in this case. Preserving, protecting, simple storage – it has so many benefits when it comes to extending your food’s life. By removing all air from storage containers or plastic bags, vacuum sealing safely conserves ingredients while keeping their original look and taste. Even vitamins and further benefical substances are preserved. Be it fruit, vegetables or even meat – they’re as fresh and tasteful as on day one.

Vacuum-sealing is not only about preserving fresh ingredients. It’s also about making them last longer. When stored in the freezer, vacuum-sealed foods last up to three years – with no freezer burn while taking up less space. This also applies to already processed ingredients. Sealing and freezing your leftover mushroom soup into family-sized portions is optimal for quick dinner preparations. This is especially helpful when cooking sous vide.

Need support on vacuum sealing? The Bosch MaxoMixx hand blender comes with an integrated vacuum function – the Bosch Fresh Vacuum System . With one simple click you can attach the vacuum pump to the device and vacuum seal the specifically-designed vacuum boxes and zipper bags.

Now we’re ready for winter. All we still need is a pantry big enough to store all our preserved treasures – and the hope, that our hungry family members don’t sneak too much out of freezers and jars before winter is over…

So you’ve harvested your mushrooms and now are in need of inspiration? How about a delicious creamy mushroom soup It will certainly warm you up after your treasure hunting outside. Small side note: The selection of Bosch hand blenders ensures best results for your mushroom soup.