Dehydrating Carrots

I love carrots!  And they are a great food to dehydrate for storage. They re-hydrate nicely too. Not to mention that I can store several pounds of them in a single quart jar.  So here ya go... This is how I dry mine.

Peel your carrots. (don't forget to put the peels in your compost pile)
Cut up the carrots in even pieces.  I cut mine into round circles. You want to cut them all approximately the same size so they will dry evenly.
Blanche your carrots for  3-5 minutes and rinse in cold water to stop the "cooking". 
Place your carrots on your dehydrator trays in single layers. It's ok if they touch each other but you want to make sure they are not laying on top of each other.
Set your thermostat at 125- 130 degrees and dry for 10-12 hours, or until they are hard and have no moisture in them. 
Store them in and air tight jar.  I like to vacuum seal my jars for longer shelf life.
To rehydrate, pour enough hot water to cover the carrots well and let them set until they are back to "normal".  This usually takes about 20-30 minutes (sometimes a bit longer)


When you are dehydrating most vegetables you can follow these same directions.  Some of the blanching times will vary though.  That is why it is good to have a decent book on dehydrating.  Most dryers come with an instruction booklet that will walk you through all the steps. I don't have any one particular book to recommend but there is a great website called Dehydrate2Store on dehydrating foods here. If you have never checked it out before you ought to give it a look.  I highly recommend it.   

The Most Honest 3/12 Minutes of Television Ever

Take a few minutes and check this out.  Amazing!  Finally some "truth in television".  Enjoy!

I'm going to go back to canning tomato's now! LOL!! 

Sunday Already!

Today's Harvest

I'm just about to the point that I might not ever want to see another tomato again.  I've spent every day this past week putting up one kind or another of tomato product.  I still haven't done some of the "tomato projects" I had hoped to do, the weather has just been too hot for cooking. I do have an outside burner set up in the shade to can on.  It's sure come in handy since there is no way I could be doing all this in the house.  It's just too hot with no AC. I am happy to say we've had a banner year for tomato's but I'll be glad when the processing is done! Canning is easy, its the preparation beforehand that takes awhile.

This week I was able to put up another canner load of salsa and several quarts (I think 21 so far) of whole and quartered tomato's. I also put up 7 quarts of a nice blend of tomato's, onions and jalapeno's for a kind of a "Ro-Tel" tomato mix.  I'm thinking I'll probably put up another batch or two of that. I just love Ro-Tel tomato's in so many dishes. I've been drying tomato's as well.  My dehydrator's have pretty much been working 24/7 for the past month.  I saw an article (well several actually) about drying tomato skins to grind and use as a tomato powder.  I'll be sure to let you know how that comes out. My first attempt is in the dehydrator right now and will be ready to work with today.  I've also been drying green peppers, lots of okra, and onions.  We just pulled up the last of the onions so I'll be focusing on those next.  They did really well this year.  I think we've probably got around 40 pounds or so.  Not bad for a first attempt!
 
It's hard to believe that as hot as it is right now it's time to be starting the fall garden here. After such a big spring/summer garden this year we've decided to slow the roll just a bit this fall. There are too many other projects that need working on that have been put on hold till cooler weather.   Mars has two rows ready to plant in. Now I need to decide what it is I want to put in them.  I can guarantee one thing.... there won't be more than a couple of tomato plants! Got to have some for eating fresh ya know?  LOL!

 I'm taking the day off from tomato's today and focusing on peppers.  I've been waiting until I got enough banana peppers now to try making a new recipe I've been thinking about.  Some Sweet Hot Banana Pepper rings.  I'll try to remember to take some pictures of the finished product.

 And as if I weren't busy enough, while I was at the dreaded grocery store yesterday I spied a huge bag of banana's that was marked at $1.29.  There must be at least ten pounds of them.  Since I don't have any room in the freezer (due to tomato's) I'm going to have to do something with them today as well.  Besides making a banana pudding I think I'll try my hand at making some Monkey Butter.  I've never made it before so we'll see how that works out.  What's left will be dried into banana chips.  I wonder if you can re-hydrate banana chips?  If you could it would be a neat way to store them to use later on in things like banana bread.  Have you ever tried that? If so, how did it work for you? 



   

Canning Salsa

We love salsa around here.  A lot!  I think that growing up in Texas with so much Mexican influence on the local foods it's just natural for us.   I love salsa on eggs, in beans, breakfast taco's, burrito's, chips and salsa,  the list goes on and on.  And so with all the tomato's and peppers we have right now the time is right to make some salsa.  I didn't really have a go to recipe to start with but now I think I just might have found one. I love that this recipe is so flexible.  And of course you can change up the amount of onions or peppers, or even use canned tomato's if you don't have fresh.    I'm working on my 3rd batch now which makes 18 quarts put up!  That just might be enough to last till next year but I just might put up at least one more batch.... just in case, ya know?

                      Salsa 
Directions
 6 pounds Roma (plum) tomatoes
1/4 pound Roma (plum) tomatoes, chopped
2 tablespoons garlic powder
1/4 cup lemon juice ( I used 3/4 cup just because I thought it needed it for canning)
1 1/2 tablespoons salt
1 tablespoon ground cayenne pepper
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 red onion, chopped
1 white onion, chopped
1 yellow onion, chopped
1 pound jalapeno peppers, chopped
1/3 bunch fresh cilantro, chopped

Bring a large saucepan of water to boil. Briefly place 6 pounds tomatoes into water to loosen skins and set color. Drain, peel and crush.
Mix chopped tomatoes, garlic powder, lemon juice, salt, cayenne pepper and cumin into the saucepan with crushed tomatoes. Whip to desired thickness. Bring to a boil. Mix in red onion, white onion, yellow onion, jalapeno peppers and cilantro. Continue boiling until vegetables are soft and mixture has reached desired consistency. Remove from heat. Refrigerate until serving.

You can click the link up there to find the original recipe and read all the wonderful reviews.  Of course I've tweaked it a bit.  I added bell peppers (because I've got so many this year) and uppped the amount of onions and lemon juice.I was kind of leary about using a pound of peppers just chopped. So the first batch I did I removed the seeds and membranes.   It ended up like a very mild salsa. So much so that it would probably be really good as a base for something like spaghetti or chili.  Not exactly what I was wanting but it won't go to waste.  The next batch I just chopped the whole jalapeno's.  Much better!  Of course Mar's loves all things HOT and so the last batch I added a couple of cored and seeded habanaro's.  It's still not to hot for me and he likes this last batch the best.   Chunky veggies that still maintain some firmness is one of the reasons I like this.This recipe is going to go on my list of have to do canning. for next year.

Tweaks I did to this..... 
 1 Tablespoon sugar, 
3/4 cup of lemon juice
extra onions
Bell Peppers
I didn't have fresh cilantro so I used dried because thats what I had on hand.  (which reminds me... I need to start some more seeds)
I drained all the juice I could from the tomato's and then just added back what I needed for the consistency I wanted.

And there you have it.  Great Salsa!! 

Hello Again

I'm not sure I've ever been away this long before.  I keep meaning to stop and sit down and get caught up but "things" just seem to get in the way.  So much going on in the whole country right now that it kind of makes my fussing about things around here seem pretty petty.  I was going to write about the heat we are having here and how the AC isn't working (again).  But it seems sort of a small problem right now with the problems others are experiencing after that killer storm.  At least we still have electricity.  Things could be a whole lot worse. 


The garden is starting to go into summer mode now.  The beans are all done and what is out there now will be my seeds for next year.  ALL the squash succumbed to squash bugs.  Those little bas bugs ate them down to the ground eventually. We might have found something that works on them though.  I'll be sure to let you know.  We have some winter squash coming up now and are trying a new bug killer.  We'll see how it goes.
 The potato's are all done.  Not much of a showing on them.  I think we might have dug 10 lbs.  Next year will be much better.  This has really been a big learning year for me.  I've never been so actively involved as I have here this year.  I've always pretty much just been the one to put up the goodies in the past.  It's alot of work for sure but well worth it.  


The tomato's are starting to ripen and will most likely all come in at the same time.  It's too hot for them to set more fruit now so I suppose I'll be planting more for the fall garden.  It's hard to believe it but it is already time to start planting the fall garden here.  Seems strange to be thinking ahead to fall when its still 100 degree's.  BUT it does mean that there aren't more than about 60 more days of hot weather to go!!  


I've been trying to get as much done as I can but the heat seems to slow me down a bit.  I've been canning and drying every day.  I haven't canned any tomato's yet but I'm going to try something I've not done before.  My friend Mushroom suggested that I freeze the tomato's I want to can until it gets cooler.  I understand the quality is not supposed noticeably different and that when you thaw them out the skin's just come right off.  So if I can save a step by not having to blanch them all the better!   One way or another I guess I'm going to find out.  Shoot, there is just so much one person can accomplish at one time.  I've also been drying  tomato's.  I'll be using them for tomato sauces and paste. 


All the peppers are still producing tons of goodness and are still blooming.  It's been a great year for peppers for sure.  I'm getting ready to put up another batch or two of hot peppers and some more banana peppers.  I also see salsa in my future pretty soon.  Just need a few more tomato's ripened up and everything else is ready to go.


I think I've been focusing on the garden to avoid having to discuss all that "Hope And Change" that's going on in America right now.  Some of us have been seeing this coming for quite awhile. The end of America is upon us and it seems that most people STILL can't see it.  For those who can, keep on prepping, cause when folks start realizing what has happened it is going to be ... shall we say .... interesting?
          
              ~~~~~~  Hey ... I'm Just Sayin' ... ~~~~~~