Summertime Food Scrounging

I don't know if it's some leftover primal urge leftover from our hunter gather days, whether it's the excuse of getting out into the sun, or maybe just a bit of wild desperation for nature after a long, cold Ohio winter has kept me under lock and key for months. For whatever reason, when the days are getting warm, I get to food scrounging.

Over winter, I eat a lot of foods that I put up over the previous warm season. Smoothies are made of frozen berries foraged in the neighborhood. Work snacks are crabapple candy, delicious sweet-sour treats of dehydrated "waste" fruit. Soups are made of a handful of this dehydrated goody and that bag of frozen greens and that ham bone that's been waiting in the freezer for a chance to shine. By the time June comes along, the pantry is a little more bare, the selection a bit more paltry. So out I go to restock the larder and prepare again for the cold days that will come.

Anyone who follows this page knows that I have two primary ways to cut my grocery spending: gardening and salvage grocery shopping. Both are fantastic ways to trim back the budget. Gardening requires little money, but lots and lots of time. Salvage grocery shopping takes little more time than regular grocery shopping, but still takes a fair amount of money. So while foraging doesn't make up a large percentage of the yearly calories, it is a worthwhile pursuit. It takes little time, compared to a full season of gardening, and it takes absolutely no money. It also adds lots of variety to the diet that would otherwise be impossible. Wild foods are very nutritious and can be delicious.

Starting out in early spring, but still viable in early summer, is foraging for wild greens. They are best early, and by this time of year (June) are a bit bitter. However, even now, they're worthwhile, especially if the bitter greens are going into a robust dish with lots of garlic and cream. Dandelion greens are the best green to get started with simply because everyone knows what dandelion looks like. You don't have to worry about accidentally poisoning your family (provided you pick from a yard you know is unsprayed). Harvest those dandelion leaves when they are tiny and haven't flowered yet for the tastiest treat. Once they flower, they are tougher and more bitter, so you'll want to use them in cooked dishes, rather than fresh salads.

Creasy greens with a baby bud in the center.

I also harvest creasy greens. These are a southern favorite that should be a northern favorite too. I love them steamed or tossed into a stir fry. Once they send up a flower stalk, stop harvesting the leaves, but then, oh then, you get the stalks. They look like mini broccoli stalks and taste like a wilder broccoli. Trucker loves broccoli, but I've never been able to grow it in my garden. This year I only harvested enough for us to eat fresh, but next year I plan to freezer in meal-sized portions for winter.

Research the wild greens that grow in your area, sample them and harvest bucketloads of the ones you like. To preserve them, simply steam them until they wilt, then cool and pack into freezer bags. Depending on family size, you can pack 1, 2 or 4 cups into each bag. Freeze flat for maximum storage in the freezer. Pull out a bag at a time to reheat as a steamed vegetable, add to omelets/frittata/quiche/souffle, or mix into a dip, similar to spinach dip but with free greens. Creasy green flower buds can be steamed or boiled a couple minutes, then dunked into an ice bath before packing in freezer bags.

Dandelion flowers can be fried for perfect fritters or the petals added to fresh salads. If you want to fill your larder with them, think of dandelion wine, dandelion jelly or dandelion syrup.

Edible flowers (Violets, Grape Hyacinths) add pretty color
to salads. Candied violets are great for cake decorating.

If you live in morel country, then it is the best foraging to be done. Nothing, absolutely nothing compares to a morel. If you have good huntin' ground, eat as many as you can fresh, as this is the best way to enjoy them. If you are really lucky and get a huge harvest, you can dehydrate them to use in winter. I once saw dried morels for sale for $230/lb.

Violets are edible and prolific, at least in my garden beds. You can eat the flowers or leaves in salads, or you could steam and freeze the greens. The flowers can be added to tea blends, mixed into sugar for a floral note for teas, or candied for decorating desserts.

Then it's berry season. For me, that means mulberries. When I was a kid, my grandma used to take me out mulberry picking. We'd pick bushes of them. After a long day of picking, Grandpa would come home and we'd all sit down to bowls of mulberries with milk. It's still my favorite way to eat them, but I do preserve some for winter. There are two main types of mulberries: red (which ripen to almost black) and white (which start lime green and fade to white when ripe). Then there are hybrids which can be pink or white with purple frosting. I prefer red berries to all other kinds due to the taste, but the other kinds don't stain the hands as badly. To harvest, you can pick them by hand, but it is labor intensive and wasteful. When mulberries are fully ripe, they fall off the tree at the drop of a hat, so if you pick one berry, five more fall to the ground. Instead, lay down a sheet or a blanket you don't care about. Gently shake the branches over the sheet. The perfectly ripe berries will fall onto the sheet. just grab the corners to pile the berries together, then bag up. This makes harvesting a breeze and you can get a whole tree harvested in twenty minutes. You can also harvest wild blackberries or raspberries if they grow in your area. These taste fantastic and you'll love them more than anything sold in stores. I freeze them on cookie sheets; one frozen solid, they are packed into freezer bags to dump a little at a time into smoothies or to eat as a chilly snack later on in summer.

Plantain seeds air drying on a cookie sheet.

Broad-leaved plantain is an edible green, but also provides some healthy seeds. When the stalks are mature and the tips of each seed is starting to turn slightly brown, I harvest them by the handfuls. I strip the seeds from the stalk by gripping near the top and pulling back to the base while holding it over a big bowl to catch the falling seeds. I don't worry about the immature seeds at the top. It doesn't add up to a lot, but it is nutrient rich and provides good variety. I use them in teas for respiratory problems sometimes, but often, I just crush some seeds into any baked goods/pizza crusts I'm making for extra fiber. It provides nominal cost benefits, but good nutrition. It also is nice, relaxing work for a warm evening with a beer on the patio, so I continue to do it.

Any and all surplus greens from the garden, and some wild greens are preserved into green powder. This bitter-as-heck powder has nothing going for it, flavor-wise, but is a healthy addition to the diet. I use greens with bad texture, like the full-sized greens on a radish bulb, carrot greens or tough dandelion greens. I dehydrate them until they are bone dry, then crumble them by hand or in the blender until they are a course powder. This powder is a nutritional powerhouse, and is an easy addition to meatloaf, casseroles, green smoothies, even brownies, anything that could use a little more veg. I try to limit its use to dishes with strong flavors to mask the bitterness. In winter, even that bitterness is welcome when there is such a limit to veg.

Crabapples waiting to be processed.

All season long, I keep an eye out for feral fruit trees. I know of countless crab apple trees, several apple trees, and 3 pear trees. All of these trees litter the sidewalks of hapless homeowners who don't connect the rotting fruit on ground with the self-sufficient thoughtfulness of previous owners. Since they don't want to bother with it, I help them out. Since I'm harvesting the stuff, they don't have to clean off their sidewalk. It's a public service, really. For apples and crabapples, taste them occasionally. Once they taste good, harvest. For pears, I tend to wait until I see the first pear on the ground, then harvest the tree clean. These apples and pears might not be the tastiest, but can be used creatively. Juice them with other apples, pears or other fruits. Add them to applesauce. Bake with them. Dehydrate them into chips. Blend with other, more tasty fruit and dehydrate into fruit leathers. If there aren't too many bug holes, they will even store in the frig for months.

Crabapple candy ready to go into the dehydrators.

Crabapples are a special thing. They take effort to use, due to their small size, but they are fantastic. They add great zing to apple juice, cider or sauce. The bright red ones in particular add fantastic color to a basic sauce. I add them to apple crisp for a bit of color. My favorite, albeit labor-intensive way to use crabapples is to make crabapple candy. I cut each crabapple into halves or quarters, then pop out any seeds. I toss in sugar until it is coated well. I load them onto dehydrator trays and dry until leathery. These candies are delicious, and while not a health food, go a long way to reduce consumption of scary store-bought candy. I think they are like a chewier sour patch kid.

Many herbal teas can be put up from foraged weeds. Use a dehydrator for quick drying to minimize flavor loss. If you don't have a dehydrator, use a low oven or hang in a cool dry place. Pineapple weed (related to Chamomile) is my favorite wild tea. It has a lovely exotic tropical floral taste and scent. You can also dry violets, dandelion leaves, mints, dead nettles, clover blossoms, strawberry leaves, or many more. Dandelion roots can make a mock coffee that's to die for.

By the end of the summer, I like to have scores of different wild foods put up for later. It makes winter much more enjoyable to pop open some jar of summery goodness and remember that spring will come again.

Weird Uses for the Dehydrator

I adore my dehydrator and use it extensively for dehydrating garden produce and bargains from the grocery. However, it is not useful just for making apple chips and jerky. There are lots of fun things to use your dehydrator for. Here are some of my favorites.

* Revive stale chips, croutons, crackers, cereal etc. When these items go stale, you can give them a second chance by popping them in the dehydrator for 20-30 minutes. They will crisp back up and taste just as good, or better than they did when you bought/made them.

* If it is too humid to air dry bread crumbs or stuffing mix without molding, use the dehydrator set on low to dry them up quickly.

* Make veggie powder out of whatever you have a surplus of. Simply chop and dehydrate vegetables. Once fully dry, powder them in a food processor, blender or coffee grinder. I sift mine and run the larger pieces through the blender a second time. This is perfect for adding to all manner of recipes: stata, omelets, casseroles, enchiladas, breads, stuffing, meatloaves, etc. Good veggies to include: tomatoes, carrots, mushrooms, sweet peppers, greens, onions, garlic. This is also a perfect use for commonly wasted produce such as radish or carrot leaves, beet stems and leaves, etc.

*Make green powder. In a similar vein, make a veggie powder of just greens. Use surplus greens from the garden, the CSA box or if you buy too many greens at the market to eat before they go bad. Dehydrate, then crumble and store, either as a mix or individually. Add these to recipes to pack a nutrient punch, or add a few heaping spoonfuls to smoothies. This could also be a great way to use wild greens such as dandelion, plantain, nettles, etc.

* Dry flowers for displays.

* Make potpourri. Dry orange peels, flowers, and apple slices or peels for a nice potpourri mix. You can personalize your mix, or just use whatever you have around that smells nice.

* Make teas. Whenever you have a surplus of an herb that would make a good tea, toss it into the dehydrator to save for later. Mints, lavendar, rose hips, lemon balm and chamomile from the garden, or red clovers or red raspberry leaves that you forage are all great for teas.

* Dehydrate citrus peels for use in syrup making or adding to tea blends. They can also be candied or rehydrated and used in baking. The candied peels can be dipped in chocolate.

* Make medicine. If you are interested in herbal medicine, you can make your own herbal supplements or teas. Dry herbs that you grow in your garden, or that you can forage. Dandelion roots are something wonderful that grows profusely in pretty much every yard, and are best harvested in early spring. Harvest a year's worth, dehydrate, crumble lightly and store in glass jars til you need it.

* Use to dehydrate extra water kefir grains to store in case you kill your current batch (or want to give some to someone else later).

* Use as a humidifer in winter when the air is dry. Just place a bowl of water in the dehydrator and turn it on. It'll blow warm moisture into the air. If you have a Nesco, you can't fit a bowl in it, but you could put your leather trays onto the tray and pour water to fill.

Do you have any non-traditional uses for your dehydrator?

Shared on:

Homemade Apple Chips

Now that apples are coming in, my (four) dehydrators are running round the clock. Apples are ridiculously cheap this time of year. A chain grocery store is selling a few varieties for $.49/lb. I discovered an orchard selling you-pick apples for $11/half bushel or seconds for $14/bushel. Around here apples sell for $2-3.50/lb most of the year. I can never justify spending that much, but I also don't want to live 11 months without apples. Dehydrating apples is a fantastic way to be able to freely indulge all year round.

Any type of apple will make a decent apple chip, but to make fantastic apple chips, go for something with more flavor like Fuji, Jonathon, Granny Smith or Braeburn. The more flavorful apples can be dehydrated as is and will be incredible. For more bland types like the "Delicious" varieties or Gala do well with a dusting of cinnamon. If you want to make apple chips to replace candy, sprinkle with cinnamon sugar. If you are going for incredible eye-appeal, use Rome and leave the peel on.

Scrub your apples well and dry with a towel. Don't throw away any blemished apples. Just cut out nasty spots or bruises and use the rest.

Some people peel the apples. However, most of the fiber and nutrients in the apple are in or just under the peel, so this dramatically decreases the nutritional value of this snack. I leave them on. Sometimes if I'm making a giant batch, I will use my fancy peeler-corer-slicer. If you do peel them, always dehydrate the peels. Just pile them on a tray and flip halfway through. They may take a bit longer than the chips, but you don't waste those nutrients. Once dry, pulse them in the blender and then work them through a sieve for apple powder. This intensely apple-y powder can be added to smoothies, baked goods, or teas.

Quarter them and cut out the cores. Then lay the cut side down and slice the apples 1/4" or thinner, but be consistent in the thickness so your chips dehydrate at about the same speed. If you want to maintain a light, pretty color, spray with lemon juice as you go. If you want to add cinnamon or cinnamon sugar, toss them into a bowl as you cut and sprinkle occasionally and then toss before putting on the trays.

Lay the apple slices onto the trays in a single layer. They can be touching, but don't overlap for even drying. Use little end pieces to fill in gaps to maximize your tray space. If you have a temperature control, set it for 120 degrees. This temperature ensures that even if you forget to check them, they won't burn and it also seems to keep the color a little nicer. If you don't have temperature control, check the apples more frequently to avoid burning. If your dehydrator doesn't have a fan, rotate and rearrange the trays after checking every couple of hours.  Check for the first time at 4 hours, and then every hour or two after that (depending on your dehydrator).

Once they feel dry, tear a slice in half. Squeeze firmly and look at the torn edge for any sign of moisture. Eat a slice and see if you detect any moisture. If it seems to be thoroughly dry, put them into a glass jar with a tight fitting lid. Leave on the counter for 24 hours. If there is any sign of moisture inside the jar, go ahead and pop them back in the dehydrator to finish up. If there is no sign of moisture, it is safe to store in a cool, dry area. By checking them for 24 hours before storing out of sight, you reduce the risk of losing a jar to mold. That being said, I've never once lost a jar of any dehydrated food to mold.

Gala on the left; Rome on the right.

Apple chips are a fantastic snack on their own. We love to take a jar or two with us on road trips, especially those made without cinnamon or sugar to reduce mess. They are lightweight so they are perfect for hiking. I send small containers with Trucker for his lunch at work and they are great for adding to trail mix. You can also add them to baked goods or to top cakes. They can be rehydrated and used in pie making or applesauce. You can make a warm apple tea with cinnamon in autumn.

One reader mentioned on Facebook that she dehydrates crab apples for a tart snack. I am planning on trying this fantastic idea and will keep you updated.

Shared on:

Dehydrated Tomatoes, or...the best way to preserve summer ever

I positively adore tomatoes, in every way possible. Salsa, marinara sauce, pizza, on salad, thick slices with cottage cheese, sun-dried and soaked in olive oil. *sigh*

Last year, my garden dumped a ton of tomatoes on me. I couldn't keep up! The stash on the counter grew and grew and we were eating them every way we could think of. I haven't learned to can yet (on the to-do list for the coming year), but was not about to waste any of those beautiful morsels of summer. I had been dehydrating apples for a year or so, and loving the results. I decided to try my hand at making dried tomatoes.

The benefits to dehydrating tomatoes are many. First off, it prevents wasting precious, beautiful, flavorful, perfect homegrown tomatoes. That alone makes it worth doing. It is incredibly easy, and the work of preparing the tomatoes and putting them on the trays is relaxing and meditative. It uses a low to moderate amount of electricity to preserve, and then none to store. It doesn't go bad if the power goes out (like frozen foods would). It can be stored in repurposed containers and therefore free containers. It doubles as decoration. It is good for at least several months when simply stored, and with ideal storage is good for much longer. It concentrates the flavor allowing for incredible food experiences. It stores in a small amount of space. Dehydrated tomatoes can be used in a wide variety of ways.

So now that I've convinced you, let's get started on the how.

Select any ripe tomato. Big juicy tomatoes won't be as good as meatier tomatoes, but I've never regretted dehydrating a tomato. When you dehydrate a tomato, you remove all or most of the water, so the flavor is super-concentrated. This is perfect. For a good tomato, you can turn good flavor into omg-this-is-epic flavor. For tomatoes that are a bit on the bland side, removing the water means that there is distinguishable flavor. Last year I grew a green tomato that was really pretty, but eaten fresh had little flavor. Dehydrating them meant that I could at least taste tomato when I ate them. This kept them from being thrown into the compost or otherwise wasted.

Cut them up, depending on what type. Cherry or grape tomatoes are best simply cut in half. Romas can be cut in halves, quarters, thick or thin slices. Large tomatoes should be sliced in thick or thin slices. A standard dehydrator will hold a lot of tomatoes so make sure you have a good number before getting started. Halves, quarters or thick slices will take longer to dehydrate, but too thin of slices may burn if you don't pull them out soon enough. I'd suggest no thinner than 1/4 inch slices.

Lay the tomato slices evenly across the screens. Don't allow them to overlap at all, but it is fine to have them touching. Place the trays into the dehydrator. If you have a temperature dial, set it for 130-135. The first few times you dehydrate them, make sure it's during the day and you can be home to check them. The last thing you want is to burn those precious beauties! Check them after 4 hours. In my old dehydrator, some of the tomatoes would be ready in 4-5 hours. If one tray is more dry than the others, rotate the trays so the least dry tray is where the most dry tray was. Check every hour or so for the first few times. Keep track of how long it takes your dehydrator to dry tomatoes for the thickness you decided on. In the future you can check less often or allow the dehydrator to run overnight or when you leave the house.

If you are drying slices, the slices will be brittle when ready. To check, remove a couple pieces from the dehydrator and allow them to cool for a couple minutes. They will seem less dry when hot, so you want to allow them to cool completely. Pick them up and drop them on the counter. They should clatter. You can also bend it. If it breaks in half completely, it is very dry and ready to store. If you are drying halves, quarters or thick slices, it won't break in half when you bend them. It will also be harder to dehydrate them as completely, so they may not store as long. For these, after they cool, tear a piece in half. Looking at the torn edge, squeeze the piece firmly. If you see a bead of water start to form or if it looks wet, dry it longer. You want it to look very dry in the middle.

Once they are dry, allow them to cool for several minutes. Don't allow them to cool for more than a half hour, as they can start to reabsorb water from the air, causing them to spoil in storage.

The easiest way to store dehydrated tomatoes is to place them in repurposed glass jars. I save most glass jars from condiments, pickles, sauces, and dressings. These are great for food storage. Wide mouthed jars are the best for storing dehydrated tomatoes. You can pack the tomatoes in rather tightly, then cap tightly.

For the longest term storage, keep in a cool, dark, dry place. However, if you plan on using them within the winter following harvest, you can use them as decoration. I line the tops of my cabinets and a shelving unit in my kitchen with glass jars filled with dried foods. It adds a lovely country charm to the room and I love it.

Now for using them! There are so many wonderful ways to use the tomatoes, you'll be devastated when your supply runs out and promise yourself that your going to double your garden space next year (if you are anything like me).

* As a snack-the intense flavor of dehydrated tomato slices is wonderful as is, but you can also sprinkle with seasonings before drying your tomato chips.
* Powder the bone-dry tomatoes. 1 part powder + 1 part water = tomato paste. 1 part powder + 3 parts water = tomato sauce. You could also use this to make tomato juice or tomato soup.
* Crumble tomato slices into a too-thin chili about a half hour before serving to thicken it up perfectly.
* When making a deli-meat sandwich for a bag lunch, place a slice of tomato against the mayo. It will rehydrate using the moisture from the mayo and provide incredible tomato flavor without the sogginess.
* Pour hot oil over a jar of them, then place in the refrigerator for a week. They'll soak up some of the oil to give you wonderful mock sun-dried tomatoes to use on sandwiches, salads, pizza or in pasta dishes. The oil will also be tomato flavored and incredible for salad dressings.
* If your enchilada filling is a bit too thin, add some crumbled tomatoes. They'll rehydrate during cooking.=

What are your favorite ways to use up dehydrated tomatoes?

Shared on:

Broadleaf Plantain

Now is the time of year when I'm really starting to get into putting food by. I always feel a little more secure knowing that my food stores will see us through the roughest weeks of winter. I don't currently put up enough food to not have to shop for groceries at all, but I try to keep enough on hand to keep grocery bills modest and provide a bit of safety in case of winter weather emergency. Any time I can get free food to put by, I'm thrilled.

Broadleaf plantain  (plantago major) is such a food. It's nutritious, versatile, free and easy to preserve. The seeds are rich in fiber and are a great way to add back some nutrition to white-flour based baked goods. They make a nutritious tea and can be added to a variety of dishes.

It's insanely easy to harvest and preserve. The day before you mow your lawn (so the stalks have plenty of time to mature and you get the largest stalks possible), simply walk around the yard and yank up any large stalks that are mature. What you are looking for is green stalks with the slightest bit of brown on the tips of the seeds. If it's pure green, they aren't fully mature and will be harder to strip. If it's pure brown they are also harder to strip and may be too old. Get at least a huge handful to make it worth the effort. It's best to let them sit for a couple of days on the counter before stripping the seeds. This lets the stalks dry out just a little so they don't break as easily.

I like to watch gardening videos on youtube while stripping them. It's mindless work, and gives me an excuse to sit down and relax with another Wisconsin Vegetable Gardeners video. To harvest, simply grasp the stalk at the top and pull your fingers towards the bottom while holding the stalk over a large bowl or cookie sheet. You'll end up with a small handful of tiny seeds. Some seeds will scatter, so it's best to do this at a table so you can sweep them up. 

After you have them stripped, you can air dry them. I simply put them in a thin layer on a cookie sheet, and throw them in a cabinet for a couple of weeks (or a couple of months by the time I remember). When they are fully dry, put them in an air tight jar. If you want to speed things along, use a dehydrator on a low-medium setting and check after a few hours, or use a low oven. 

To use them, you can either make a tea by pouring a cup of boiling water over a heaping tablespoon of the dry seeds.  This has a grassy flavor, but it is not unpleasant. My favorite way to use them is to add fiber and nutrients to baked goods. I replace up to 1/5 of the flour in a recipe with ground up plantain seeds when making pizza dough, highly flavored muffins, or even pancakes. If using a smaller amount, the taste isn't noticeable, but if you want to use a larger amount, make sure that there are other strong flavors to outweigh it. I've even mixed a small amount into granola.

If you are making tea, you can leave them whole. If you are adding them to baked goods, it's best to grind them up. I usually just pinch a small amount and smash them with my fingers a bit. If you want a more uniform grind or want to grind a large amount at once, use a blender or coffee grinder and then work through a sieve, regrinding the larger pieces as needed. These store really well over the winter. The longest I've kept some in storage was a year and a half, and they weren't rancid at that time, so feel free to put up a lot.

The leaves are also edible, but are best when young and tender. Harvest them while small and use like you would spinach. You could also dehydrate some of the leaves to add to your veggie powder jar. You can also use leaves of any age as a poultice for wounds. Just mash/chew up a leaf or two and place on the wound. Place a bandage or cloth over the area to hold in place. The young, softer green shoots can be steamed or stir-fried.

Shared on:

Mango Banana Fruit Leathers

 Earlier this year I bought a brand-spankin-new Nesco American Harvest Snackmaster Express all-in kit. So pretty. It included fruit leather trays, but I'd never been much into fruit roll-ups. Even as a kid, the neon colors, extreme sweetness and off-flavors bothered me. Last night though, I found myself with 6 mangoes that were just about to go from wonderfully ripe to compost. Around here, that's sacrilege. I had to find something to do with them all, immediately. I also had a bunch of bananas at the nice, mottled brown stage, not quite overripe, but sweet and delicious.

I chopped up all six mangoes, using a spoon to scrape the pits and peels to get every last lovely bit of the pulp. I blended them with 4 bananas in two batches. Each batch filled two leather trays. I added enough to completely cover the trays, but not so much that it was seeping over the edges. I used a spoon to try to level it out, but as you can see from the second photo, I didn't do the best job. That being said, they are still delicious, so it wasn't a complete failure.

I dehydrated them overnight at 115 degrees, which in hindsight was a little low. They were still tacky and still wet in some areas when I checked 9 hours later. I kicked the dehydrator up to 135 degrees and let them go for another 3 hours. When I checked on them, they were quite dry, not very tacky, but not crisp. I peeled them easily off of the dehydrator trays in one smooth motion. I laid them directly on the trays and dehydrated them for another half hour just to ensure they were fully dry.

They were quite tasty. Unlike the store-bought kind, they weren't sickly sweet, just lots of tropical flavor with a hint of sweetness. I'll admit that the color leaves something to be desired. Next batch may have some lemon juice or citric acid added to prevent browning.

I can't wait to try new flavors. Apple strawberry. Strawberry lemonade. Pineapple Mango. Blackberry Pear. 

These will be a great snack for road trips and hiking. For those with kids, this would be a great addition to lunch boxes. It is a quick, easy and cheap way to use up a lot of fruit that would otherwise go to waste.

Shared on:
Homemade Mondays

Drying Frozen Foods, Or the Easiest Dehydrator Project Ever

March is National Frozen Foods Month. Grocery stores are having sales on some frozen foods, so it may be worth checking out the sales to see if there is anything you use on a better sale than you usually see, or if there is something that is usually out of your price range that is at a decent price now. Just don't buy those creepy frozen pizzas with three pepperonis and barely any cheese. Just don't.

I did buy several frozen foods today. Plain, normal, run-of-the-mill frozen veggies. They were on sale for $.88 per 1 lb package. That is a better price than those veggies usually are in the fresh produce section. While fresh veggies are picked and shipped halfway across the globe before they get to your store (and continue deteriorating until you buy them and eat them), frozen veggies are frozen shortly after picking and then shipped. While they are far from an ideal source of produce (that is your garden, farm stand or farmer's market), in the dead of winter, when the garden seems forever away and the stores from last year's harvest are dwindling, frozen veggies are a decent source of nutrition.

My freezer is currently filled to the gills with some clearance-priced yogurt, bacon I found on an awesome sale, and some venison my parents gave me. There wasn't a lot of room for frozen peas and carrots. So I dehydrated them.

I have a Nesco American Harvest Snackmaster dehydrator with 5 small-holed trays. My last dehydrator was an older Snackmaster that had the large hole in the middle. Even thought the trays are not the same,  they fit perfectly together, so I use the old trays on my new dehydrator. Now I can dehydrate 9 trays all at once.

I dehydrated 6 packages of frozen foods: 2 lbs broccoli, 1 lb green beans and 3 pounds carrots/peas/corn/green beans.

This was the easiest dehydrator project ever. Usually filling the dehydrator is a 1-2 hour ordeal, scrubbing, peeling, chopping/slicing and arranging. Not this time. I simply cut the bags open, dumped some on each tray and spread them roughly even. The only cutting I had to do was to cut a few of the larger broccoli pieces into smaller pieces so the trays would sit flat, but in the 2 packages, there were only 6 large pieces. The produce doesn't need to be blanched. This is definitely a time saver, and an especially easy way to preserve food when you are desperately short on time.

They fit on 8 trays. The peas, corn and diced carrots were very small, so I put those on fruit roll trays or mesh screens so they didn't fall through the holes. If you don't have special trays, you could just use plastic wrap over the trays. I put them on 135 degrees.

This seems to be a great way to take advantage of a good sale, increase my food stores to get me through until the garden starts to produce, while saving valuable freezer space meat sales. Also, in my area, power outages are common, and sometimes last for weeks. For that reason, I prefer to dehydrate most of my food stores so I don't risk losing everything. Next year I hope to get a bigger harvest from the garden, and put up more homegrown foods for winter eating. However, dehydrated frozen foods definitely has it's place in the food stockpiling plan, and will be a great way to put up foods that I don't grow, like broccoli and corn.

Use it Up: Veggie Powder

Many things are tossed into the garbage can when they still have lots of good life left in them. Use It Up is a section on how to use this "trash" to make new, useful items for your home or to re-purpose items to avoid a purchase.

My garden is producing massive quantities of veggies right now, and I'm adding them to every meal and also preserving as much as possible. With this harvest, I'm faced with another problem: waste. I harvest several radishes for a nice little snack, and I'm left with a gallon-sized container of radish greens. When cutting up celery for stir-fry, I'm left with lots of celery leaves. If you can tomatoes, you'll have loads of tomato skins. Whatever edible veggie-parts you're left with, it seems a shame to throw them away (or into the compost bin) when you worked so hard to grow them (or spent so much to buy them). A great way to use them up is to make veggie powder.

Veggie powder is a mix of dehydrated veggies, pulverized into a powder, used to add flavor to dishes. You can add it to eggs, casseroles, breads or soups. You can us it in place of seasoning packets when making rice, or sprinkle a pinch on top of a baked potato. You can add them to salads or to salad dressing. This winter, I plan to dump large quantities into the soups and chilis I make every couple of days to add more flavor and nutrition in a time when I'm craving produce.

Here are some ideas of veggies to add to your powder: tomatoes or skins, carrot leaves or peelings, beet leaves and stems, radishes that are too spicy to eat or the leaves or stems, celery leaves, pea or bean pods left from shelling, any green leafy veggie that you have too much of, any herbs in surplus, pepper skins, broccoli/cauliflower stems, and any other veggies that you just have way too much of (or find a fantastic clearance rack bargain on).

Dehydrate leaves separately from more dense items that will take longer to dehydrate. Leaves only take a few hours in my dehydrator, while many veggies take 8 hours or longer. Cut denser veggies into small pieces or shred them to expose as much surface area as possible to the warm, dry air. This will also make it easier to pulverize.

Once you have your leaves and veggies dehydrated, toss them into a food processor or blender and pulse until you've got a nice, fine powder. Pour the mixture into a flour sifter to sift out large pieces. Reprocess the large pieces. Mix the powders well and you're done! You now have veggie powder to add to all sorts of savory dishes and reduced the amount of green matter you tossed into the garbage bin!

Shared with:

Dehydrating Peppers

I use a lot of peppers in my cooking, especially in winter when I make lots of soups, stews and chilis. During the winter, however, peppers are ridiculously expensive and the quality is terrible. Instead of just settling for crappy, expensive peppers, I dehydrate wonderful and cheap peppers during summer to use all winter long. Dehydrated sweet peppers make a wonderful snack, especially for road trips or hiking. Peppers can also be added to eggs, casseroles or pasta dishes.

Last night at a farm stand, I found beautiful Hungarian Wax peppers for $1/3 and jalapenos for $1/5. Sometimes I find peppers on the clearance rack at the grocery store 4 bell peppers for $1 or a 5 lb bag of hot peppers for $2. If you get a bumper crop of peppers in your garden, dehydrating is a perfect way to stretch your harvest with minimal expense or space.

First, clean the peppers well, and dry. Trim off the stem and any bad spots and cut out the seeds and membrane. I cut small peppers into rings and larger peppers into thin strips. You could cut them into chunks or thick strips, but you won't be able to fit as many on a tray and it will take much longer to dehydrate.

Lay them out evenly over your dehydrator trays and dehydrate for 6-18 hours, depending on types of pepper, size of pieces, humidity, etc. When they are fully dry, they will crack easily when squeezed and clatter when you stir them.

I reuse food jars left over from pasta sauce, pickles or relish to store my dehydrated food. I have stored dried peppers for several months without noticing any loss in quality. If you wanted to save food for a longer term, add oxygen packs, vacuum seal or oven can the peppers. 

You can snack on them (drink plenty of water if you regularly snack on dehydrated food). You can rehydrate them by pouring boiling water over them for about 20 minutes. If you are making soups or chili or a slow cooker meal, just add them to the dish dehydrated, and simply add a bit more water than the recipe calls for.

Republished on: Homegrown.org

Shared on: