Adventures in local food: Growing & Preserving
Welcome to Grow it, Cook it, Can it...
From planting to harvesting to cooking and preserving food at home, You'll find articles on gardening, cooking and recipes for delicious food preservation. We're here to help you get more from your garden and put up the freshest produce in the winter months as well as all year round.
Featured Posts
What You Need to Know About Ameraucana Chickens Care
The Ameraucana chicken breed is a great choice for anyone who wants to keep backyard chickens for their eggs, as pets, or as an addition to their garden. These chickens have feathers that are bright orange and purple. In fact, the name Ameraucana comes from the combination of American and Araucana. They’re one of the…
The Beginners Guide to Raising Chickens for Eggs
Raising chickens for eggs is both rewarding and fun. It’s not only great for your backyard but raising chickens also comes with a variety of benefits. They are quite low maintenance and produce fresh, organic eggs that you can use for cooking and eating. If you’re thinking about getting some hens to raise in your…
How to Choose the Best Chicken Coop for your flock & Where to buy it
Chickens seem like a fairly easy animal to farm. They’re tiny, simple, and don’t do all that much, but if that’s the thought process you go in with, you’ll be surprised because chickens can be a little more than a handful. These are animals that thrive if you keep them in the right environment, and…
Marlborough Pie
I’ve already replied to e-mails and looked at new recipes and ordered some supplies for holiday craft projects… I think writing about pie is a reasonable next step.Anyway, this is such a delicious pie recipe that despite the fact that all of these pictures are old, from the Days Before The Blog, I’m going…
Charcutepalooza Lamb Sausages With Garlic Scapes And Mint
This month’s Charcutepalooza challenge was to make sausages in casings. I give you: Lamb Sausages Seasoned with Garlic Scapes, Mint and Lemon accompanied by a salad of Baby Greens, Roasted Plums and Chevre I still can’t really believe that I made real sausages completely from scratch. It was a battle. I manifested something terrible by watching the Texas Chainsaw…
How To Cure Your Own Olives (Because Homemade Pizza Is Better With Homemade Olives)
Months ago, when I was shopping for blood oranges and oysters at the Allemany Farmers Market, I ran into these beauties: Fresh olives! I couldn’t believe it, and grabbed a huge bag of them. Olives are so delicious, and the thought of curing my own was majorly exciting. Of course, I had literally no experience…
Honey Sweetened Blueberry Butter
I’ve been trying to write some recipes that don’t use refined sugar. I really don’t like the taste or how it makes me feel after I eat it…. and it seems like there are a lot of other people out there that are on the same page as me. I don’t like looking at…
Failed Quince Jelly Into Orange Marmalade With Quince And Star Anise
When I first started making jam, I would get the occasional customer that would ask if I used added pectin. At that point, every single batch I’d ever made used commercial pectin, and I had no clue why anyone wouldn’t want to use it. Quince is incredibly high in natural pectin, so adding a jar…
Mother’s Day Watermelon Pickles
The ladies in my family are all preservationists. My mom never once bought jam when we were growing up- she always had a sweet little pantry in the basement with sour cherry, blueberry and raspberry jam, icicle and bread and butter pickles, and canned apricots in syrup. When I moved to California, before I…
Canned Pears In Maple Syrup
I was going to make jam to sell at the farmers market with these pears. Local bartlett pears are one of my absolute favorite fruits to work with — they’re just so juicy. So sweet. I love them. I started eating a few fresh and then said screw it, I’ve gotta stash away a bunch…
Latest Posts
What You Need to Know About Ameraucana Chickens Care
The Ameraucana chicken breed is a great choice for anyone who wants to keep backyard chickens for their eggs, as pets, or as an addition to their garden. These chickens have feathers that are bright orange and purple. In fact, the name Ameraucana comes from the combination of American and Araucana. They’re one of the…
The Beginners Guide to Raising Chickens for Eggs
Raising chickens for eggs is both rewarding and fun. It’s not only great for your backyard but raising chickens also comes with a variety of benefits. They are quite low maintenance and produce fresh, organic eggs that you can use for cooking and eating. If you’re thinking about getting some hens to raise in your…
How to Choose the Best Chicken Coop for your flock & Where to buy it
Chickens seem like a fairly easy animal to farm. They’re tiny, simple, and don’t do all that much, but if that’s the thought process you go in with, you’ll be surprised because chickens can be a little more than a handful. These are animals that thrive if you keep them in the right environment, and…
Marlborough Pie
I’ve already replied to e-mails and looked at new recipes and ordered some supplies for holiday craft projects… I think writing about pie is a reasonable next step.Anyway, this is such a delicious pie recipe that despite the fact that all of these pictures are old, from the Days Before The Blog, I’m going…
Charcutepalooza Lamb Sausages With Garlic Scapes And Mint
This month’s Charcutepalooza challenge was to make sausages in casings. I give you: Lamb Sausages Seasoned with Garlic Scapes, Mint and Lemon accompanied by a salad of Baby Greens, Roasted Plums and Chevre I still can’t really believe that I made real sausages completely from scratch. It was a battle. I manifested something terrible by watching the Texas Chainsaw…
How To Cure Your Own Olives (Because Homemade Pizza Is Better With Homemade Olives)
Months ago, when I was shopping for blood oranges and oysters at the Allemany Farmers Market, I ran into these beauties: Fresh olives! I couldn’t believe it, and grabbed a huge bag of them. Olives are so delicious, and the thought of curing my own was majorly exciting. Of course, I had literally no experience…
