dehydrating, canning, and Cheese

When it comes to food preservation, it seems wise not put all your eggs in one basket. After all, long power outages can wipe out all your frozen goods. Canning food is great but time consuming. And it's difficult in an emergency situation to load your backpack full of cans, obviously. Welcome, food dehydrating! It's ridiculously easy and not-at-all time consuming. Best of all, the food you dehydrate will retain it's nutrients while shrinking into an ultra-light product.

I picked up my dehydrator for about 40 bucks. The first thing I tried was simply slicing onions and laying them on the rack. Viola! Dried onions for very little money. The jars you buy in your favorite stores spice section probably contain about 10 cents worth of onions for which you pay at least 2 bucks.

How about those costly 'sun-dried' tomatoes from the gourmet section? Just grow or buy some decent tomatoes. Dehydrate them and use as usual. They are fabulous in homemade salad dressings. Try this:

Put about about 1/2 cup mayo in your blender
Next add two tablespoons veggie or olive or canola oil(or whatever)
add a tablespoon or two of your personally dehydrated onions
add a clove of garlic
add a tablespoon of dried basil or your favorite herb
don't forget about a 1/4 cup of any good vinegar
Toss in a slice or two of dried tomato
blend til smooth

adjust seasonings as necessary. Thin with a little water if needed. This is one the best salad dressing ever. Cheaper than buying it and tastier. The tomatoes add a depth of flavor but will not make the dressing taste "tomato-ie"

For about two weeks I've been drying onions, green beans, mushrooms, lobster mushrooms, celery, dill, peas, just about anything I can get my hands on. So tonight Max and I tried a little experiment. We called it "dried things soup". Our family had spent the day at a friends BBQ so I was tired and not in the mood to cook much. I put a big pot on the table and handed ingredients for Max to put in. All of the dried foods listed above went into the pot. Plus some garlic and browned ground turkey. Next a can of corn for color and diversity (dried foods are not real colorful). Finally we added lentils,bouillon, and pearl barley for flavor and texture. And of course, water. Roughly thirty minutes of simmering and the soup was done.

Surprisingly, it was a big hit. Who knew culinary laziness could be so rewarding? It took Max and me all of two minutes to pour the ingredients into the pan. The rest was just simmering time. Dried food is pre-cut so there is no chopping at cook time.

This week the goal is to can more blackberry jam and find reasonably priced tomatoes to can. More on that later.

Dante' and I finally made the mozzarella cheese. It really isn't too hard. However, try not make yours the first time just from a recipe. There are tricks to it you should probably learn by watching. I'll dedicate a whole post soon to the cheese issue so you'll know what I mean.

Finally, a garden mini-miracle: The squash are having a turn-around. We've suddenly been finding Zucchini and yellow squashes making it past infancy and headed for full growth. Bees are matriculating around the flowers so that has to be a good sign. Tomorrow, there should be some to pick.

At our plot in the community garden the tomaoes are showing color. The beets are growing and new lettuce is nearly ready to harvest. The celery are huge and invasively leafy. They are also tough, stringy and strong-flavored. No clue what that is all about. Looks like some research is in order.

Today I was watering the community plot when an inebriated bum wandered into the garden. Dante' flipped and crouched in the potting shed while making frantic gestures in my direction. Turns out the poor guy just wanted some produce. He asked for someone's rhubarb in the scratchiest voice I've ever heard. Well, you can't pick other peoples veggies, I informed him but offered some of our carrots. The guy was so pleased his voice was almost normal for a moment. After securing the carrots he leaned over the fenced and yanked out a stem of rhubarb anyway. Gleefully, he informed me that his mom used to grow them and he loved 'em.

'Ya know, from the look of that guy's teeth, that garden produce was probably the only healthy thing he was going to eat that day. Probably the only NON-liquid substance he would ingest that day. So I hope the rhubarb owner isn't too offended at the missing stalk. It went to a good cause.

peace,
-EJ