I discovered a few years back, after some urging from my dear friend Anne, to start an herb garden. I now consider this the best decision I ever made. I have added enough annual and perennial herbs to my garden that I can not only provide most of the individual herbs I use in my cooking, but also most of the seasoning blends, such as chili powder, taco seasoning, and Italian seasoning.
But making it yourself can be much more economical if you continue the process several steps further.
For example, I have always been a gardener. My grandmother had me helping in the family garden by the time I was 4. But when I became an adult and was actually the one putting food on the table, I began to realize what a waste of time and money it was when tomatoes and other vegetables spoiled, because the crop I was harvesting was too large for us to eat it all fresh. That was way before people began buying home computers, so I went to the Extension Office here in Blytheville, got a few brochures, and taught myself to can.
That was a lot harder way to learn the craft, and I lost a lot of what I canned before I finally got the hang of it. Now, you find hundreds of step-by-step explanations online on how to do everything from making and canning grape jelly to making and canning sauerkraut, including videos you can follow along with easily.
But you don't have to preserve the vegetables and fruits in their original form. The best way to utilize multiple vegetable harvests is by making soups, stews and chili. I started out making tomato soup, and have since experimented with vegetable meat soups, noodle soups and carrot-based soups. This year I plan to come up with a tomato-chili pepper soup and a squash soup that contains pumpkin. You can utilize three or four times the harvested vegetables in soups as you can by only eating the vegetables fresh.
Some things, like soups, have to be canned in a pressure cooker or frozen. And some things, like pureed pumpkin and soups with a cream or milk base, need to be frozen to begin with. But there are ways to maximize your garden crop, and it is well worth the time and money to learn. There is an initial investment in canning jars, but after the first purchase you can reuse them forever, just replacing the lids and the rings when they show signs of wear. And of course freezer containers can be reused over and over, you just have to re-label the lids.
But recently I took yet another step forward, and it has placed me in an entirely new area of recipe creation. My friend Laurie sent me a loaf of homemade bread after I had a surgery, and it occurred to me that everyone ought to have their own bread recipe. So I have started making my own breads. I have two that I like, an Irish soda bread and a peasant bread. The soda bread is actually a sweet breakfast bread, which is delicious with butter and would be even better with a little maple syrup.
But the peasant bread, as its title suggests, is just plain bread, made with simple ingredients. I have already decided, since it is just so much cheaper to make the bread than buy it at the store, that I am going to make my bread from now on. But the challenge is to make it taste better than the average peasant bread. (And to make it actual bread loaf sized. If anyone knows where I can get a large loaf pan, I would appreciate the information; just send it to the email address at the end of this column).
The next step for me will be biscuits. I have a recipe and I plan to try it soon, but as soon as I have one I like I will probably just make and freeze several batches of the dough to have on hand if one of the kids and their families come to visit. One of the main reasons I never baked bread before is that I don't bake, because I don't eat the kinds of things you bake. But biscuits are one of those family breakfast staples, so I have committed to coming up with a recipe.
The point is, the more you do to provide food for yourself and your family, the more satisfaction it gives you, and the more money you save. Growing, harvesting, preparing, and preserving the foods you eat, and saving seeds for the next year should be a continuing part of everyone's routine.
plen@rittermail.com