Part XIII: Cooking for the Future

Since the cookbooks I'm referencing the most these days are about canning and preserving, I decided to change topics.

Food prices are going up.  This is largely due to the pandemic.  In the beginning, there were food shortages because of hoarding and because restaurants were shut down, disrupting the way food producers package and distribute goods.  Commercial foodservice has reopened gradually, so manufacturers have mostly been able to keep up.  However, the returning goods are now more expensive due to many factors, not the least of which is COVID protocols changing the way production lines operate.  There's also an aluminum shortage having to do with trade tariffs with China.  That mostly affects pet food and canned drinks, but there are a few other items that package with aluminum that have suffered.

What I'm getting at is that we should all avoid wasting what we have purchased, because it costs about 5% more than it did last year.  The most obvious way to do that is not to over-buy in the first place.  Still, it's hard to estimate exactly how much everyone in a family will eat over the course of a week or two.  One unexpected pizza night when you were going to make fish could cause $10 of seafood to be thrown out.  My solution to that is to cook it up anyway and freeze it, but we'll go into specific fixes as the unit progresses.

There are going to be a lot of canning recipes this summer because I got a new canning pot.  I water-bath can.  I do not pressure can, which is supposedly safe but I just don't have space for all of those jars.  It also takes a really long time.  Some water-bath recipes process for as little as 10 minutes.  I've been making all my own jams for years, and now want to get into pie fillings and other items you would want in a pint or quart jar.  The majority of water-bath recipes do not have to be processed.  You can make the recipes and refrigerate or freeze leftovers.  Pie filling made with Clearjel is an exception.  I'll let you know whenever the recipe is solely for canning, but that will be rare.

There will also be easy gardening tips in this section, things even those in an apartment can grow.  This is all about cutting grocery bills and not wasting money on food that will spoil if you don't do something with it.  That's kind of always been the focus of this blog, but I'll go more into how to preserve what might be about to go bad.