Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Dried veggies

On a whim the other day, I decided to put some vegetables into my dehydrator. They dried, and then I rehydrated them, mostly too check out taste and texture, but also to see how easy it was.

Turns out? It's easy.

Then, a friend of mine had the idea that if I can dry veggies, why not put packets of vegetables together? Throw a packet into a slow cooker with whatever else in there you want, and voila. Soup. Or a casserole. Or whatever else you want.

Pretty phenomenal. There's also something darn neat about a bucket of carrots becoming a little over a cup of dried veggies.

So, that's the plan. I'm not sure I'll divide them out, but I"ll definitely do a bunch of dried vegetables. SO easy!

This could also solve my walla walla onion issue...They don't have a long storage life, but if they're dried, they'll maintain sweetness AND live longer. Hmmmm...

Other than that, life rolls on. I've been feeling pretty stagnant recently. Maybe it's fall slowly rolling in. I want change.

But the good news is this desire for change did mean the laundry room got cleaned yesterday.

3 comments:

  1. I love my dehydrator! In fact, I need to do more of it because, you're right, SO easy to do! So far, dried apples and zucchini chips are my fav.

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  2. I have never dehydrated onions, but I have caramelized huge batches and freeze them that way. It is nice to pull a baggie out of the freezer for pizzas, soups (mm, french onion in 10 minutes!), etc.

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  3. OOh! Good idea, Farmer Jo. I may have to do that with some of my onions. With the Wallas, I'm just hoping to keep the sweetness. The sweetness leaves the onions rather quickly, and Wallas only have a shelf life of less than 3 months. So maybe yes, to caramelize some! I'm up for experimenting.

    Ashley-- I rehydrated some of my zucchini, and they were just fine! So good! :)

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