This autumn, my husband and I have been busily jumping on the local food bandwagon by buying up as much local produce as possible and preserving it to last us all winter. One of the the things that small farmers do in order to stay afloat in competitive markets is to create “value added” farm products. In a sense we are adding value of our own by cooking and canning our purchases, creating a final product that is worth a lot more than the original produce.

Here in Eugene, September was apple season, apples were literally falling off the trees all around town. We splurged on an apple peeler/corer, and then dried a whole bunch of apples in our dehydrator. We also cooked up a large batch of apple chutney. We love curry and Indian food, but mango chutney is expensive and decidedly not local. Apple chutney is a delicious alternative and now there are 20+ jars in our cupboards.

Last week, with the first fall rains looming, farmers at the market were selling 10+ pounds of tomatoes at discounted prices, so we bought more than 30 pounds and proceeded to process them. Now we have many cans of salsa, tomato sauce, and diced tomatoes ready to feed us all winter.
photo credit: Jasmine&Roses