good morning y'all. we had a really cool night last night in my neck of the woods. got down to 19* F. we're supposed to have a pretty nice warm up today though. I hope so. not a real big fan of the cold, but I'll have to take what I get and be satisfied with it. it seems to be pretty quiet here in my neighborhood. I just hear some rumblings of a truck, maybe a leaf truck a couple of streets over. the occasional train will go by. with the dropping of the leaves, the trains sound like they're right inside with us when they go by. but we quickly get used to it. the tracks are about a half mile or less as the crow flies from us. in the summer time, we hardly ever hear it, because of all the leaves.
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So this is what I'm working right at the moment. I got some covers to go on my 4 raised bed planters that I put all my garlic in yesterday. so when it warms up, I'll be out putting those covers on. hopefully, it will keep my garlic from freezing. it would have been nice to have them earlier and I had them ordered way earlier, but got the wrong size and returnedd those and ordered the right size. so, I'll get that job done today. also need to make some bread. I'll see how industrious I get today. monday, I done laundry all day and yesterday, I got both of my dehydrators loaded up. my largest one has almost 3 lbs of orange slices on it and the small one has one tray of orrange slices that I couldn't get on the other one and also 3 trays of sliced cranberries. so let's talk about my process for a little bit.
I slice my oranges about an 1/8th of an inch thick. these were navel oranges so the peel is a little thicker, but that's fine. I set my dehydrator on 110* F and set the time as high as it goes and walk away.
for the cranberries, I slice each one in half. it takes a bit of time on the front end, but I also know that my hands have touched every cranberry and if there is a bad one, I can toss it. I put these on my trays and set at 110* F also and set the timer as high as it goes. I walk away. if I need to reset the times, easy peasy. they both stay on the dehydrator until they are "cracker crisp, rock hard or bone dry". that is my 3 criteria for knowing when something is ready to come off the dehydrator.
a lot of people will dehydrate something for a little while and take it off and put it in jars and then have to put it back on and wonder what they done wrong.
personally, I don't take anything off the dehydrator until one of my 3 criteria has been met. if it's completely dry "WHEN" I remove it from my dehydrator, then I know it's not gonna sweat and release moisture in the jar. bone dry is very important or you risk mold.
so if you'll get in the habit of making sure your produce is as dry as you can get BEFORE removing it rom the dehydrator, then more than likely, you won't have to put it back on.
bone dry and rock hard are just that. if you take a hammer to something, it should shatter when you hit it. if it just smashes down in the middle, it's not rock hard or bone dry. if you're dicing sommething, make sure your dices are no larger that 1/2 inch thick. you can make longer pieces, but nothing any thicker. for my cubed potatoes, carrots, winter squashes, I have one of those hand dicers that you put a slice in and it makes perfect cubes. so I'll make 1/2 inch slices and then dice with the dicer. worth ever penny, which it actually didn't cost much. so you might want to check into one of those. it also make quick work of dicing onions.
cracker crisp is when you have thin slices of whatever and you take a slice and break it like breaking a fresh saltine or some other kind of crispy fresh cracker. my orange slices will be cracker crisp before I take them from my dehydrators. also with citrus, if you can squeeze a slice between your fingers and juice or any stickiness comes from the little citrus pockets that make up the citrus, then you know it's not dry. so when I quit getting any moisture or stickiness form squeezing, then I'll start trying to break them. if they bend, they're not ready. it's only when they break like a crispy cracker, that's when they will be ready to remove the dehydrator.
as for the sliced cranberries, they just need to be really dry. I split them so that they will dry much quicker. if you dump a bag of cranberries on a dehydrator try, it will take forever for them to dehydrate. slice them and they will dry completely in a pretty reasonable amt of time. I have 4 more bags to go when this one is dry.
once the oranges and cranberries are dry, I'll jar them up. I can use them in many different ways. I'll ttry to remember and take pics of them when they come from the dehydrator. I love to blenderize the 2 together with a little bit of monkfruit sweetener in them. it is so wonderful to use in tea, I use it in my chia seed pudding for my breakfast, in yogurt and the list goes on.
I hope you find this semi tutorial helpful. I will have pictures later on, so be on the watch for those.
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let's have a "2 minutes in the kitchen with me" segment this morning. little slow getting started, but I'm making cornbread swirls with a twist this morning. I dehydrate just about any and all produce. I can't stand waste, so it goes on the dehydrator. you can usually hear mine running most of the time. as I'm working on this post right now, I have 2 dehydrators going.
when I get little bits of something dehydrated, I'll jar it up till I get enough little bits to make a jar of what I call "Master Mix". I got jar my #1 of master mix out (yes there is a #2 and working on a #3) and put a couple tablespoons of that in my cornbread swirl mix. if you could only smell this stuff!!! it is wonderful!!! if I knew how to make perfume, I would use this stuff, it smells that good. maybe it's just my smeller though. 😂🤣 anyway, the jars are showing the mix I used, what's in the master mix, and then the doughball as it came together. it has to finish up mixing then I'll shape and cut it, bake it and then a taste test. yay!!!
the jar that I used had for this batch of cornbread swirls had 19 different veggies blended into it. what I'll do is watch my jars as they start running low. then I'll pull out those jars and get my nutribullet out and start blending them together. I don't know what all is in the jars. I do have a jar that has hot pepper in it too. I keep them separated. hahaha
there are all kinds of bell peppers, tomatoes, greens, radishes, 3 or 4 different squash, cucumbers, jerusalem artichoke, carrots, celery, mushrooms, cabbage and the list goes on. I don't throw anything away. I'll dehydrate it and put it in one of these mixes. this particular jar was started back in early 2021. I have another one just like it, but it has hot pepper in it.
this is good to put in just about anything that you want to bump the flavor profile up. it's so unique and yours will be even different from mine. there are no measurements for what goes in it, just scraps in the bottom of jars.
I've used this in bread, soups, mac and cheese, meatloaf, chili, sour cream for a dip, sprinkle on top of salads, and the list goes on. it's very versatile. make some with your kibbles and bits, you won't be disappointed. I call this my "Master Mix". hahaha
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I think this will be it for today. got a lot ahead of me today and I guess I need to get started. I hope and pray that you all have wonderful and productive days today. I pray that you will make room for God in your day today. ask Him to bless it and be a part of it today and see how peaceful and calm your can be. even if it's not peaceful and calm, you'll know that you weren't in the mix. I rarely have peaceful and calm days, but I know if I laugh about something, then I know God laughed a little bit too. and if I grieve over smoething, I know He felt it also. my point is this, we're never alone. He's always with us. that makes me wanna shout!!! blessings, hugs and love to you all as you go about your day. come back real soon. patty
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