Using some of my dehydrated goods, Cran-Orange candy!!!

good morning folks.            this is your friendly weather woman coming at you once again from my neck of the woods with the latest on the weather.             it was a glorious 20* when I got up this morning, woop woop!!!          it is right now, as of 8:08am, 25* hot degrees!!!          oh yeah!!!          I'll take it.      hahaha          it is supposed to get above freezing today, praise the Lord!!!!            I just have to say it and I can't keep saying it enough, we truly are blessed to have gone thru this weather event and not lose our electricity!!!            thank You God, for Your watchcare and hand of protection over us.         I know others weren't so blessed and I grieve with them over the loss of their loved ones.         so that doesn't go unnoticed by me at all.          I'm just thankful and grateful for what God has done.

so, yesterday evening late, we wanted a little snacky snack.            I'm usually not one for a snack after six or seven o'clock in the evening.            but I got started at this early enough that I got it made and we got to sample it before going to bed.           ok, who am I kidding, we ate it.         there I said it, we ate it and it was delicious!!         hahaha

I have shown some of the cranberries and oranges that I have dehydrated in the past and that's what I used.         I had made a batch of powdered cranberry orange powder and that's what I wanted to use.        I got out the cran-orange powder and a make shift double boiler along with some white almond bark and commenced to melting the almond bark.         mission accomplished.          I thinned it down with another couple of ingredients so I could get a couple of tablespoons of cran orange-powder mixed in before it set up too quickly.

the above pic is of the mixture once I had in my silicon pan.           I popped it in the fridge and let it set up.             that little dab of mixture is about the size of a small saucer, so it's not a lot.

this is just the mixture without the jar in the picture.              it looks so good.            after it had been in the fridge for about 20 minutes cooling down, I took it out and used my metal spatula to loosen it from the silicone and turned it bottom side up for another 20 minutes.          when I was satisfied with what it was feeling like, I took it from the fridge and rolled it in a tight tube.            it looked kinda like a short fat sausage.           I thought I had a picture of that too, but I didn't see it on my computer.        I may not have sent it from my phone.

this is what it looked like once I got sliced into bite sized pieces.            this right here is the picture of yumminess!!!          this should be in the dictionary as a picture of "yummy".        hahaha

and I love that there are pieces of cranberry and orange that you can see.          this has a hint of tart along with sweet and creamy along with crunchy and chewy.         it truly is good.

and I'll tell you something, I was worried about what it would do to my blood sugar.           I'm not diabetic, but it runs in my family, so I keep a check on it every morning.             I figured my blood sugar would be sky high this morning.           it wasn't!!!       it was at 91, so I was thrilled with that number!!           usually, if I eat something like this, my blood sugar will be higher, sometimes a lot higher.          now, this doesn't give me the license to have this every day, but it looks like it's a treat that I may be wanting to have on hand for a bite when the craving hits.         but I was totally surprised by the number, yet thouroughly thankful and excited.           I will test my blood sugar the next time I have this and see if it's still running like that, if so, then it may be a good, one or two bite snack.

well, that's about all I have today.          it looks like it will get above freezing today and we have a couple of errands to run a little later on.           I hope everyone has a wonderful day.         let's all thank God for His hand of protection over us and keep Him first place in all we do today.          blessings of peace and mercy be yours today.           hugs and love, patty

Cran-Orange Dehydrating = Done,

good morning beautiful ones.         it's a little bit of a dreary day here in my neck of the woods.         it's a perfect day for making bread.        and that's whats on my agenda today.          a batch of rolls and buns and a batch of cornbread swirls.         I have all my dry goods mixed and waiting for me to get started.   it won't be long till it will smell wonderful up in here.

I'll tell you a little funny story before I let you all get started on your day.         fridays is my day to go krogering.         I'll get up early and get back home early.        so I was up and ready to leave, went to the garage and the garage door wouldn't open.        I tried latching the cord hanging down, but it's so tall and I'm so short that it was a no go.         so I just came back in and got out of my street clothes and back in my comfy clothes.       when hubby got up and came thru, he asked me if I didn't feel well this morning, if that's the reason I didn't go krogering.        I told him I felt fine, I just couldn't get the door open and his eyes got really big.       "REALLY???", he said.       then, all the sudden, the light bulb off and he knew why.          he had been working on the garage door last evening and forgot to reset it where it would open when you hit the button as the side of the entrance to the garage.       he was so apologetic for that.         I told him not to worry about it, because I had already thanked God for sparing me from what ever could have and would have happened this morning had the garage door opened.       maybe nothing would have happened, but I really wasn't looking forward to the trip, but had the garage door opened, I would have went.        while it's kinda funny, it's also a praise item for me.        there really wasn't anything that I needed.        I've talked about how I try to stay stocked, and this is just one more reason why.       you never know when the garage door just might not open.        hahaha        yes, I laugh about it, but I also thank God for what He spared me from this morning.         praise Him!!!!!

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let's do a "2 minutes in the kitchen with me".    

ok y'all, so yesterday I think I talked a little bit about what was on my dehydrators.          this is the 4 trays that was in one of my dehydrators.        the smaller of the 2.          it had one tray of oranges and 3 trays of cranberries making one 12 oz bag.         splitting the cranberries takes a lot of time up front, but it's so much nicer in the end.        and I slice my oranges a little less than 1/8 of an inch.    

the oranges close up.       these were actually kinda small, but they are so good.

a good closeup of the cranberries.     that really makes me happy to see them.      I love those colors!!!

I added about an inch and a half to the cranberry jar.       I hope to get it full with the other four bags.

I also finished filling 2 of these jars with all the orange slices and then filled another 2 jars with what I took off the dehydrator.        I have 6 or 7 jars of oranges now. 

this is what my cran-orange powder looks like.         it has a little bit of monkfruit sweetener in it.         this was before I sifted it and put the large pieces back in to be ground up more.

I think I had mentioned my breakfast inn yesterdays post.          this is what my jars look like and you can actually see that 2 of the front jars have some of my cran-orange powder in them.        I love it so much that I put it in all of my jars the last time I made them up.           when I get one for breakfast, I'll put a tablespoon of coconut milk in it and stir it real good and it makes it so wonderful.

I hope you enjoyed seeing how I do my cranberries and oranges.        it's a great way for me to get more fruit in my diet each day.          I hope you will consider something like this.     

I have another bag of cranberries to take from the dehydrator sometime today.       yesterday I was getting ready to cut  my cranberries and I wasn't particularly looking forward to it.       so I'll share my new "how to" for cutting cranberries.       I always stand by the sink and it just kills my back.         I said ok Lord, show me what I can do.         I already had my cranberries in my collander, washed and ready to start cutting.        I got one of my largest mixing bowls and put my collander in it and got my favorite paring knfe and plopped myself in the recliner closest to the kitchen door from the living room and poppeed the foot rest out and started cutting those cranberries in half and it didn't take but about 10 minutes at best.      standing by the sink at kitchen counter, it takes me 35 or 40 minutes at least.       because I'm always stretching my back or doing sommething to keep my back from hurting.        I'm just so thankful that I finally figured something out.       so I just had to thank the Lord for helping me come up with a way to do a simpe task and it not hurt my back.       I look forward to the next 3 bags of cranberries.

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this one is short and sweet this morning.         if I remember to, I'll share pictures of my bread when I get it all done.         blessings, hugs and love to you all, patty