good Sunday morning my friends. it's 39* here in my neck of the woods and I'm not loving it. an old old friend of mine has come to visit and I'm not very happy about it. I had hoped and prayed that I would never see this friend again, but alas, this friend showed up and now this friend is here and I have to deal with this friend. what is this friend? a horrible flareup of my body when we have a lot of cold, cool, damp weather. I started feeling it thursday, but pushed on thursday. with all the rain we've had, it actually popped into my head on tuesday or wednesday of this past week that I haven't had any signs yet and then there it was thursday morning but I ignored it. a little worse on friday, I still ignored it. yesterday, I couldn't ignore it any longer. I did get a batch of bread made yesterday and by the time I got that done, I was done for the day. I got my shoulder heating pad on and wrapped up in that and the heat in my recliner going. I had a tear in the muscles across my back at the lower part of my shoulder blades about 40 years ago and I guess that's why this particular area of my body is so affected by arthritis and ra. not only my upper back and shoulders and neck, but my wrists and certain fingers and my ankles and certain bones in my feet along with my hip joints. so it seems to be everywhere. it's everywhere, it's everywhere!!!! hahaha oh well, just wells to get a little grin out of it. hahaha my good friend that lives in arizona sent me some essential oil blends and that is what I'm using to get me thru this. I'm so grateful to her for all she has done for me. it's about the only thing that has helped me keep my sanity.
so, I didn't make a post yesterday and that's why. I think I've missed 2 days since I got started back to blogging in november. that's the best record for me, ever. I've got to get it worked out so I can post about 3 days a week and keep the routein. especially with spring and summer just around the corner. so we'll see what I can come up with.
thursday, I filled my dehydrator with produce in the fridge that needed to be dehydrated. plus a bag of frozen corn and some oranges. I got all that going and took a couple of pictures in the process and I truly wish I had taken more. this is where I feel like I'm failing right now, not getting enough pictures for good explainations. I guess that's something to work on. anyway, I'll share what I did get done.
this is the pictures that I did get. first off, let me say that I dehydrated oranges, bell peppers, tomatoes, green onions and a bag of frozen corn. the corn went on the bottom tray. next tray up from the bottom was the bell peppers cut up and that took only a half tray. so I filled that tray with cherry tomatoes, the next tray up, was another tray of tomatoes. the next tray up from the bottom was orange slices and then the top 2 trays was green onions.
when you learn how to use your trays, in a stackable dehydrator, you can dehydrate all kinds of thing together. my heat comes from the bottom, so I start with what ever has the least aroma on the bottom, working my way to the top with the most aromatic on the top. if you have a stackable that has the heat unit on the top forcing heat downward, then you would reverse that order. this right here is how you can dehydrate all kinds of produce together and not have apples smelling like onions or garlic. it works. I've been doing it this way for years.
when I got my produce from the fridge, tomatoes and bell peppers were well shriveled. I look at that as a lot of the dehydrating having already been done for me. wash and inspect each piece really well before you cut and maybe get some bad pieces mixed in with the good pieces. as you can see, when I got to the tomatoes and bell peppers, there was stuff I had to cut away. notice on the left hand side of the picture, some of the stem ends of the tomatoes had started turning black. so with my good sharp knife I just sliced that off and then cut the tomatoes in half as usual. just inspect each piece and do a good smell test and if you have to, taste a piece and see if it tastes funky. if so, toss the other half.
in the bottom right hand corner is where I was cleaning the bell peppers. I washed them and cut the tops off them. I had 4 bell peppers and when I got the tops cut off, I started cutting away the flesh from around the stem area. gotta save all that good yumminess. when I got to the last one, the biggest one, I turned the stem end over and it was molded on the inside, just at the stem. so I made another cut across the pepper, cutting off a ring about 1/4 inch thick and then sliced off another sliver and tasted it and it was fine, so I cut that one up too. but that's something that you have to watch for in bell peppers, especially the little snacking bell peppers. those stems get hollow as they get dried out in the fridge and will allow bacteria to come up thru the stem into the pepper. so when you're cutting them, be sure and check for mold on the inside, especially if they have started to shrivel a little bit.
at the top of the plate is the way I cut my tomatoes in order to expose the insides in the best way. the top one is how I used to cut them, the bottom one is the way I now cut them. yes, the top ones will get dry, but not as quickly as the bottom ones. I would suggest you to try it next time you dehydrate grape tomatoes.
so this is what was in the top pic, just a more closeup shot of it. cutting them east to west always exposes the most of the insides possible. you can see the top one looks like it still has seeds hidden by the interior design of the tomato and it does.
this is my green onions that I dehydrated. notice all those lovely roots. I let that pkg of green onions stay in the fridge until the roots had grown. there was 15 green onions in that pkg and all but 1 grew roots. the root area of the onions had been cut away from that onion in the pkging process. but the others still had the root bed intact, so that's why they grew.
this is how much I cut away from the green onions to save. I got them all cut up and on my dehydrator and then the fun started. once I got the dehydrator completely loaded, I went outside, in the 60* temps on thursday and planted all these lovely green onion roots and I fully expect them to make it. if they don't, it's no great loss, but if they do, wow, free onion blades all summer long!!!!
green onions make a wonderful powder that is super fantastic used as a garnish with a ton of flavor. I also love to just crush into fine flakes and use it that way as a garnish. I love to use it on deviled eggs, potato salad, pasta salads, open faced tuna salad and the list goes on. larger crushed flakes is good in salsa. if you buy a jar of salsa and it's lacking something, try adding some green onion flakes. it's always good to put in stews, soups and casseroles. I always say that I'm only limited by what I can't think of, when it comes to using my dehydrated goods. there are no hard and fast rules when it comes to using them, we just have to use them. and have fun.
this next little picture is a pic of my little measuring spoons. the tiny little things are so hard to take a picture of. I think they are shy because they are so small. hahaha these are the "bees knees" as far as I'm concerned. the tiny one on the left, the "nip" is what I use in my vanilla powder when I make my breakfast bowls. these came from a local Amish store. I'm sure there are other places to get them too.
well, I think I'm gonna get off here and try to get a little rest for this dreary body. I feel good other than where I don't. hahaha but I keep thanking God for the winter I've had up to this point and I know He'll see me thru this bump in the road. Lord give me some sunshine. but I'll take what ever You give me. it did feel so good to get out thursday and get my hands in the dirt while I was planting the onion roots. if/when they come up, I'll take a picture of them.
I pray that you all have a wonderful Sunday. let's keep God at the top of our list and keep Him first place, and even the days that hurt won't hurt so bad. you'll still have your joy that comes from knowing Him, and with that joy, we can handle it all. Lord, bless us all with a great day and may we share Your love with someone that needs to know You.
blessings of love, joy, and peace be yours today. hugs and love, patty
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