good afternoon lovely friends!!!!! I hope that your day has been spectacular, where ever you may be on this big beautiful globe!!! we finally had a little bit of rain this afternoon. it's been over a month since we've had any, so even though it was a little, a little is better than nothing. but we have been having some really beautiful and nice days here lately. it's been a very nice fall so far y'all. I hope it is for y'all too.
I continue to pray for all those that have been devastated by hurricane Helene up in the Appalachian mountains and the latest one to hit Florida. we sure haven't been hearing much about either of them on the news as of late. if it weren't for the "can do" attitude of the people in Appalachian Mountains, nothing would have been done!!! but they are getting the work done without much interference from the govt, and that's good all day long. keeping the political hands away is always better anyway. neighbors are not going to take advantage of the people where as the govt always does. if a hammer costs 10 dollars at ace hardware, someone has a buddy that has a buddy that has a buddy in politics and that same said hammer will cost $10,000. so, if you can keep govt people out if, do it. and I'm mighty proud of the folks in the Appalachians with their "can do, will do" attitudes. I keep praying for them daily, as they continue to find lost loved ones. it's so heart breaking.
and besides, we all know that it's more important for the news media to spend all their time focusing on the wicked evil people that are running for president, than it is to keep a focus on a part of this country that has been devastated, voters, no less. how can you tell if a politician is lying? when you see the news media is there with a microphone stuck in their mouth. if their lips are moving, they're lying. I can't believe that what's running for president is the best that this country has to offer!!!! if it is, then this country is a lost cause. I can't believe that the people, voters, in this country would actually vote for either one of them!!! but what do ya do when these wicked, evil perverts is all we have to vote for? oh well, I digress. I've done what I can do and that's vote, and I'll leave the outcome in God's hands. I've prayed about and prayed about it. I've prayed and voted and the rest is in God's hands. God help us all.
well, my favorite time of the year finally rolled around. the stores got stocked with cranberries, fresh cranberries. yay!!! woop woop!!! happy dance!!!! woohoo!!!!! yes, I've got some cranberries dehydrated. and I thought I would do an "all things cranberry" blog post. I kept checking the stores and finally they showed up. I never seen them at kroger, but I seen the price and they was gonna be over $3 for a 12 oz bag. nope, not gonna happen. I finally seen the wal mart app said they were in stock and we went , sure enough they had them!! so, I got 10 bags, yup 10 bags. I sliced in half 6 1/2bags and the other 3 1/2 bags, I pureed. the pictures below will help explain what I done with them.
this is what a bag of my cranberries weighed. 361 grams is what my scale showed. the bag shows 340 grams. there was a few bad ones in each bag, but I didn't weigh them before I put them on the dehydrator after they were sliced. with picking out the bad ones, it probably was down to 340 grams.
this is my method for slicing each cranberry. I wash them well and drain them. put them on my large cookie sheet with a small cutting board and start cutting. I can fill my 6 tray weston in about an hour with 3 bags.
this is the rotten ones from 3 bags.
a close up of the cranberries after dehydrating.
this is the weight of a 12 oz bag, previously weighing 361 grams on the scale. the bag said it was 340 grams, but I did take out several bad ones, after dehydrating it's now weighing 41 grams.
this was just a few hours after I had poured the puree into the trays.
this is the trays that I done the pureed cranberries in. to puree them add no more than 1/2 cup of water toa 12 oz bag. the water will have to be dehydrated out, the less the better.
This is showing a mix of my cranberries. a jar with halves, a jar with blenderized cranberries and a jar with powder.
This is what 10 bags of cranberries looks like.
This is what 20 bags of cranberries look like.
and even as I type, I have 7 more bags in the fridge that I need to get done. I'll puree them and dehydrate them that way. I found out that the pureed ones really do make fantastic powder. the half pieces do too, but I'll use some of the half pieces in baking and stuff like that. so while I'll always dehydrate half pieces, I'll also dehydrate some pureed cranberries too. I'm hoping when this last 7 bags done, that it will be enough to last me till next october. we'll see. hahaha
I use cranberry powder in my breakfast every morning. it's also good to put in my homemade greek yogurt. and, and, and............just for fun, it's delicious to put in white almond bark and make a cranberry candy. oh yeah!!!!!! now were talkin' some goooooood stuff up in here y'all!!!! cranberry slices also good to put in pancakes or waffles. when the slices are used, they have to be rehydrated with water. so what I'll do is take the amt of cranberries I want, say 1/4 cup and pour 1/2 cup of boiling water over them and let rehydrate. sometimes I'll the rehydrate over night in the fridge. if I'm going to use the right away, I'll let them sit for at least 30 minutes. then they are ready to use.
another thing that I enjoy about dehydrating cranberries, is that it usually comes about during the times when the weather is mild, so it doesn't just run the utility bill right thru the roof. so while it's been mild, I've been trying to take advantage of that.
I encourage anyone to dehydrate. my rule of thumb is this: "cracker crisp, rock hard, bone dry"! that's it. if it doesn't meet that criteria, it will mold. if you've lost hard work to mold, you do better. you learn to do better. or you will lose more hard work. just recently someone asked me about how I get powder so fine and they shared a pic of what theirs looked like. my suggestion was that she had not gotten her produce as dry as it should be. she said she had lost some to mold. so if you do dehydrate and you don't know what it's supposed to be like, write my criteria down. "cracker crisp, rock hard, bone dry!!" anything less than this will result in mold. a lot of books and manuals will tell you dehydrate for so long, 5 or 6 hours. that results in loss. you dehydrate for as long as it takes to get it to meet my criteria. maybe 24 to 48 to even 96 hours!!!! if you're not willing to put the time in, then just don't do it at all. but if you put the time in you won't lose anything to mold.
another thing is temperature. LOW and SLOW lower your temperature!!!! all manuals and books have WAY too high temps recommendations. anyone that knows anything about produce at all knows that starches and sugars will turn dark when the temps are too high. I love for my produce to look like it did when it was fresh, color wise. with too high temps, every thing turns dark or black and you don't know what you're looking at. so if you want dark or black produce, use the recommended temps. but if you want beautiful colors, set your temp to 110*F or less. 110*F will keep most of my produce beautiful.
something else that a lot of people do is dip everything in lemon juice!!!! if you want everything to taste like lemon, go for it. but I don't. if I want something to taste lemon, I'll add lemon to the dish. plus, if lemon was so good about keeping stuff from turning dark, then lemons wouldn't turn dark when they are dehydrated. if I see pics of other peoples dehydrated produce their citrus is always dark. so I don't buy the fact that citrus keeps everything from turning dark.
well, this about all I have for now. if I think of any more dehydrating goodies, I'll share them. I hope everyone has a wonderful night of rest. and I pray that we all wake up to a wonderful new month. and that we are refreshed and ready to get into it. just remember that God provided a way for us to be in right relationship with Him thru the shed blood of His Son, Jesus Christ. if you don't know Jesus, why not? now is the time. He's waiting for you. be blessed y'all, hugs and love, patty