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Step-by-step illustrated instructions, informative charts and a host of delicious recipes make this an indispensable kitchen reference. Covers freezing, canning, drying and pickling produce fresh from the market or garden.

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Prepare smoked and salted hams, fish, jerky and game — adapting today's material to yesterday's traditional methods. This book shows you how, with more than 50 recipes such as country ham with red-eye gravy and many others.

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Simple step-by-step instructions guide you through the process of drying and storing more than 100 kinds of fruits, vegetables, grains, meats and herbs. There are even complete plans for building your own food dryer. As seen in the Seed Savers Exchange catalog.

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Food drying has become very popular in recent years, with electric food dryers now available in almost every department store. But instead of using costly electricity for the job, you can easily build yourself a dehydrator that uses the power of the sun to dry your food.

The Solar Food Dryer describes how to use solar energy to preserve your summer's harvest. With your own solar-powered food dryer, you can quickly and efficiently dry all your extra garden veggies, fruits and herbs with free sunshine and enjoy their goodness all year long! Solar food dryers perform amazingly well under a wide range of conditions, working effectively in almost any climate where you can grow fruits and vegetables. As a bonus, solar food drying is a great way to learn about solar energy and experience the incredible power of the sun — as well as being a great deal of fun! The Solar Food Dryer includes everything you need to get started:

• Complete step-by step plans for building a high-performance, low-cost solar food dryer from readily available materials
• Solar energy design concepts
• Food drying tips and recipes
• Resources, references, solar charts and more

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This ultimate food drying resource has something for everyone: vegetarians, natural and raw food enthusiasts, hunters, fishermen, gourmet cooks, gardeners, farmers and hikers. With more than thirty years of food drying experience, Mary T. Bell offers straightforward and practical instructions for drying everything from yogurt to sauerkraut to blue cheese, without ignoring traditional favorites such as jerky, mushrooms and bananas.

Throughout, Bell offers nutritional tips and highlights the time-, space-, and money-saving benefits of food dehydrating. Also included are descriptions of how various food dehydrators work to give readers a better understanding of the tools of the craft. Food Drying with an Attitude gives readers the recipes, instructions and inspiration they need to get the most out of their home food dehydrators.

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Are you looking for simple ideas to save money? The MOTHER EARTH NEWS Guide to Living on Less has dozens of ideas to help you save money on food, housing and energy, while also living a greener life.

These strategies for living lightly are simple, satisfying and even fun. Here are a few of the articles you’ll find in this special collection:

• For big energy savings that can also help you save money check out our “8 Easy Projects for Instant Energy Savings.”
• Ready to start a garden, or make your existing garden bigger?
• Read “Easy Garden Anyone Can Make” for an easy plan that will have you growing more vegetables in no time.

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Saving time and money is easiest with make-ahead meals, and in Fix, Freeze, Feast you have all the steps you need for making delicious meals ahead, freezing them and enjoying them whenever you are ready.

By making food ahead you will be saving money, as you can buy seasonal products or in bulk. Freezing your meals in ready-to-eat servings will allow you to have a delicious homemade meal at the table in minutes, without having to spend hours preparing, cooking and cleaning every week. Just thaw your meals in the fridge overnight, reheat and enjoy.

With more than 100 recipes including sauces, beef, pork, chicken and vegetarian meals, as well as pastas and Mexican-style dishes you'll be on your way to filling your freezer with delicious meals that, once thawed, will take just minutes to cook.

The recipes in this book include meals you can prepare, freeze, and cook when you are ready, fully-cooked frozen meals you'll just need to thaw and reheat, as well as recipes for smoothies, freezable cookie dough and other treats.

Fix, Freeze, Feast contains tips on grocery shopping for your make-ahead meals, and recipes for using your frozen marinades and sauces in other recipes anytime, as well as labels for correctly identifying your meals in the freezer, and detailed information about cooking your once-frozen meals.

Cook ahead, skip the restaurant, save money and enjoy fast wholesome meals every night in no time.

About the Authors: Lindsay Tkacsik and Kati Neville are enthusiastic make-ahead cooks, warehouse club shoppers, and founders of meal assembly businesses. They share an appreciation for well-organized freezers and clearly labeled containers.

Hide Author Sharon Astyk tackles all the nuts and bolts of preserving foods, and provides tips on how to bulk buy and preserve food inexpensively. Independence Days is packed with valuable secrets to home food preservation, including canning and dehydrating techniques, root cellaring, season extension, and a host of broader issues. In addition, it focuses on how to enjoy a delicious, high-quality diet at home year-round, how to preserve food on a community scale, and how to reduce reliance on industrial agriculture by creating self-sufficient and vibrant local economies.

In just a few decades, America's approach to food has changed radically from the self-sufficiency of our grandparents to the convenience foods of mega-supermarkets. The recent economic crisis has seen millions of North Americans move from being middle class to poor, and from poor to hungry. At the same time, the trend toward self-sufficiency, whole foods health and eating locally is shifting from being a pricey fringe activity to an essential element of getting by. But how can you eat locally, not just when the farmers markets are bountiful, but all year-round? Who really knows anymore how to eat outside of the supermarket, and who really knows how to eat a balanced diet based on easily stored and home preserved foods?

About the Author: Sharon Astyk is a former academic who is a writer, subsistence farmer, parent, activist and profile blogger (SharonAstyk.com and HenAndHarvest.com). She farms in upstate New York with her family, raises livestock, and grows and preserves vegetables. She is the author of Depletion and Abusndance, and co-author of A Nation of Farmers.

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Anyone can learn to store fruits and vegetables safely and naturally in a cool, dark space with the step-by-step advice in this book. Root cellaring is a way of using the earth's naturally cool, stable temperature to store perishable fruits and vegetables and preserve them for months to come. This book will show you a no-cost, simple, low-technology, energy-saving way to keep your harvest fresh all year long.

Recommended Product for Wiser Living: Today, more than ever before, our society is seeking ways to live more conscientiously. To help bring you the very best inspiration and information about greener, more sustainable lifestyles, MOTHER EARTH NEWS is recommending books and products to its readers. For more than 30 years, MOTHER EARTH NEWS has been North America’s “Original Guide to Living Wisely,” creating books and magazines for people with a passion for self-reliance and a desire to live in harmony with nature.

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Everything you need to know about canning and preserving local or homegrown produce, including how to can, freeze, pickle and dry all kinds of fruits, vegetables and other foods. Also includes a section on storing fresh produce in root cellars.