Dill Pickled Carrots

November 11, 2024 Sarah

I’ve been considering adding more easily preserved pickled vegetables to our meals. I decided to do carrots first. The hands-on time is very short, and I was done within an hour and had all my water bath canning gear packed back up. And that is how canning should be – quick and easy.

Dill Pickled Carrots

Ingredients:

6 cups white vinegar (5% acidity)
2 cups filtered water
½ cup pickling/canning salt
7 cloves garlic
7 tsp dillweed
3½ tsp red pepper flakes
5 pounds of baby carrots

Directions:

Place 7 wide-mouth canning jars in a water bath canner. Fill the jars with water and the pot about ¾ full of water. Bring to a simmer.

Place the lids and bands in a small saucepan of water, bring to a simmer, then let sit.

Add the vinegar, water, and salt to a large saucepan and bring to a boil.

Once the jars are simmering, drain them and place them on a clean kitchen towel.

Add garlic clove, 1 tsp dillweed, and ½ tsp red pepper flakes to each jar.

Pack in baby carrots, pushing down. Depending on how they fit in the jars, you may not use the entire amount of carrots.

Ladle the hot vinegar mixture over the carrots. Remove air bubbles, then add more liquid for a ½” headspace, if needed.

Wipe the rims of the jars with a damp paper towel, then put on lids and bands, tightening to fingertip-tight.

Place in the canner, ensuring they are fully covered in water. Bring to a boil and process for 10 minutes. Turn off the stove and let it sit uncovered for 5 minutes.

Transfer to a towel-covered cooling wack and let it cool fully.

Remove the bands, ensure the lids are flat and sealed, and mark the contents and date on the lids.

Use within a year for best results.

Letting sit for a month before eating allows flavors to develop for pickled items.

Makes 7 pints.

~Sarah

Dehydrating Berry and Apple Fruit Leather

November 5, 2024 Sarah

With a predicted windstorm looming, I cleaned out the freezers and consolidated them so we wouldn’t lose anything if the power went out, which was a good thing, as we lost power Monday morning. We had bags of frozen berries that we had grown and picked. They were mixes of Black, Marion, and Red Raspberries. We also had Honeycrisp apples we had grown this year, which were ugly on the outside. I can’t eat berry seeds, as they are not a friend to my body, so I strained the berries, discarding them. This, of course, leaves your mixture very thin. So, by adding apples, I got the natural pectin, which helped thicken it.

With a little hands-on work, I soon had plenty of mixture drying on the dehydrator and, within 12 hours, delicious fruit leather.

I run on an older L’EQUIP dehydrator that I bought in maybe 2004 or 2005, and it is still running strong. A newer version of it is here. If I were to replace it, I would probably buy a metal one with flat trays and a center spindle. That would more resemble my freeze-dryer trays. But since this works just fine, no need to upgrade. And yes, yuo can do it in an oven, on rimmed baking sheets, on the lowest setting. Be sure to check often; it takes far less time.

Want more recipes for dehydrating? See here.

Ready for storage (and snacking on).

Fruit leather drying.

Berry and Apple Fruit Leather

Ingredients:

5 pounds berries
3 apples
1 Tbsp lemon juice

Directions:

If using frozen berries, let them thaw on the counter first. Heat the berries in a heavy-bottomed pot and stir often until they break down.

Press the berries through a fine mesh strainer until the seeds are left. Discard the seeds. I had 4 cups of liquid.

Transfer the liquid to a blender, adding in the lemon juice.

Peel and core the apples, roughly chop, and add to the berries.

Blend until the apples are broken down.

Transfer back to the heavy-bottomed pot and bring to a simmer. Then cook for 15 minutes over medium-low heat to low, maintaining a low simmer. The mixture will thicken, so stir often. Once the time is up, take off the stove and let cool a bit, stirring. The natural pectin will thicken up.

Meanwhile, get out your dehydrator. Using parchment paper, cut out a rough shape of a tray, then trim it so it fits over the center core (if your dehydrator has that) for ventilation, then trim the sides so it lays.

Spread the fruit mixture in sections, about ½ to ¾ cup each, and make sure it is spread evenly. I used 3 trays total, and had about 4 cups mixture.

Place on the dehydrator, set at 135°. It took us about 12 hours. Every hour, I moved the trays so that each tray visited the bottom, where it was the hottest.

At about 8 hours in, the leather was set on top, so I cut the parchment paper to fit each section and placed them upside down so the top was more exposed to the heat.

In the last 1 to 2 hours, I peeled each section off the paper and allowed it to finish drying.

Once fully dry, turn the dehydrator off and let cool down.

Using a pizza cutter, I cut the section into halves.

Cut new parchment paper to fit, and roll each section up tightly, then tie kitchen twine around to hold it closed.

Store it in a glass mason jar, and if you are taking it with you for a snack, transfer it to a bag or plastic container before leaving.

For the long term, add a desiccant packet and seal the jar.

~Sarah

Freeze Drying · Prepping · Preserving · Recipes

Freeze-drying A Naturally Sweet Healthy Snack

November 3, 2024 Sarah

We spent the summer and early summer working on freeze-drying food for the winter, especially eggs when they were plentiful in the long days. It works well for us, do the work when it happens and eat later. A Little Red Hen tale always. Don’t be lazy when it is on. Often we freeze-dry a lot of the same things over and over (that we use often).

This treat is one we do often. It uses the prime harvest time or even when the best of it shows up in markets. Process it, and you will eat well for months.

And what is that?

Carrots!

Just out of the Harvest Right Freeze-dryer, ready to be put into small MRE-style mylar bags.

Yes, it is that simple. Raw carrots were freeze-dried. They become even more sweet when dried and can be eaten as a snack. You can, of course, soak them in water and cook with them after drying, but it is so easy that there is no need to blanch the produce beforehand. Just peel and slice up, then proceed.

What is the sweetest vegetable out there? For me, I would say carrots. When you freeze-dry them, they become intensely flavored and even sweeter.

Buying dehydrated carrot dice is easy, but they are not the same. Dehydrated carrots are tiny bits that must be rehydrated before eating. They are pre-cooked, so they work fine for meals with a 15-minute rehydration time or to be added into say stews and soups and left to simmer.

If freeze-dried raw carrots can be found commercially, they are often marketed as a dog treat (lucky them!).

So, if you want a fun snack, it will be a DIY project!

Freeze-Dried Carrot Coins

We usually prep 15 to 20 pounds of carrots at a time. If you are harvesting from your garden, you can process them as they are ripe, and once you have enough, put them on a run in the machine. This makes it very easy.

Try out the carrots. You want them to be as crisp as possible and taste great. You won’t get a good final product if they are soft, limp, or mealy.

This also opens up choices. Buy or grow the fancy carrots for a different look. Freeze-drying white, yellow, and purple instead of orange? Easy!

I buy carrots when I see them at good prices or when the harvest flow is happening. I give them a good wash, then peel and trim.

Slice into coins or on the bias (so at an angle). We have done it both ways. I find that the bias cut is best for enormous carrots. For smaller carrots, cut coins.

I spread them out on rimmed baking sheets and freeze them. Unless I work on a big lot (say 15 to 20 pounds at once), I transfer to bags once frozen and keep them frozen until I have enough. This lets you harvest carrots over a couple of weeks in summer and early fall. (We have a Large size unit, so we pack it pretty full)

Once you have enough to run a batch, lay the carrots on the freeze-dryer sheets and put them on. The machines are automatic, so it is quite easy.

Once dry, open the machine and test a carrot to ensure it is fully dry. If not, put it on for a few more hours. Otherwise, bag the carrots (or put it into mason jars) and seal it with a desiccant and an oxygen packet. If you use the small MRE-style mylar bags, you have a ready-to-go trail snack. Be sure to note the date dried and what is in the bags.

Enjoy your naturally sweet and crunchy treat!

Tip: When enjoying freeze-dried treats, drink water with it. Your stomach will appreciate you.

Want to see what else we have freeze-dried?

All the tutorials.

The Black Friday November Harvest Right Sale Is On!

This is Harvest Right’s best sale all year long, with the machines hundreds of dollars off. If you have been contemplating getting one, this is the time.

~Sarah

Freeze Drying · Preserving

Preserving The Spring and Summer Bounty: Freeze-Drying Eggs

June 11, 2024 Sarah

As we approach the Summer Solstice next week, homesteaders have been harvesting a lot of eggs if they have chickens, ducks, turkeys, and even quail. I know that for us, with only 17 hens currently, I can take in a baker’s dozen per day, most days. For us, we are nearly at 16 hours of daylight. The chickens are feeling great right now!

That adds up quickly, and I can be staring down at 12 dozen in the refrigerator (I prefer to store my unwashed eggs chilled, as always, do what works for you!). When it hits that half my refrigrator is egg cartons, it is time to process the eggs.

Are you even a homesteader if you don’t have a ton of eggs right now?

What we do in this season is to freeze-dry them for later use. In winter, when the light is just over 8 hours a day, we are fortunate to get 1-2 eggs a day (we don’t use lighting for our birds in winter, and let them rest). Being able to pull out mason jars full of bright yellow eggs? That is a huge deal. No need to go buy eggs, paying $5 to 10 a dozen for anything worth buying at the store.

They store well in both mason jars and mylar bags, tightly sealed.

The beauty of it is, you can work on this over days, as you have time and eggs. Liquid eggs go into the freezer to be frozen before they are freeze-dried.

Freeze-Drying Eggs:

Collect and wash the eggs in warm water. Let hangout on a kitchen towel to dry.

Crack each egg into a cup, then transfer to a blender. When the blender is about ¾ full, put the lid on and on low, process the eggs till they are fully mixed. You want the whites blended in fully.

To control the mess, I cover my counter with parchment paper.

Place a freeze-dryer tray in the freezer, and slowly pour the liquid eggs into it, till the tray is nearly full. Put a tray lid on carefully so there isn’t any spilling. Gently slide the freezer closed and remind everyone in the house not to bother the freezer for an hour or two. This ensures my kids don’t do their usual of ripping the door open quickly and jostling the still-liquid eggs.

Repeat until you run out of eggs. How many eggs it takes to fill the trays depends on your egg size and the size of your freeze-dryer (we have a Large Harvest Right). It took me about 6 dozen eggs. I had to do it in 2 batches over 2 days, as our freezer in the house, I can only stack 3 trays. Then I moved the trays down to the bottom and did the other 2 trays.

Once fully frozen, turn on the freeze-dryer for 15 to 30 minutes to get it ready (following the directions for your machine – essentially, the machines are now automatic on the cycles and sense when it is dry).

Insert the trays and let them process until they are fully dry. To check for being fully dry at the end of the automatic cycle, use a gloved finger in the center of a tray to ensure it is fully dry.

I had not tried drying the eggs directly on the trays, before I used silicone ice trays to freeze them in, and then placed the frozen cubes of eggs on the trays. The eggs pulled away nicely from the trays once freeze-dried. One less step, and I will continue to do it the tray way from now on. I got out a large stainless steel mixing bowl, and with gloves on, I knocked the eggs into the bowl (easy to do) and crumbled/powdered any chunks with my fingers.

Using a canning funnel, I loaded quart mason jars (6 of them) and 2 quart-sized mylar bags for the 5 trays, adding in 1 oxygen absorber packet and 1 desiccant packet. Being raw eggs, I take that part very carefully.

We then seal our jars and pouches in our Avid Armor Sealer (also see on Amazon).

Mark when you dried them and tuck them away for the long, cold, and dark days of winter. Store in a cool, dry place, preferably out of the sun, for the longest shelf-life.

To rehydrate:

Start with 2 Tablespoons dry egg powder and add 2 Tablespoons cool water; stir to blend, and let sit for a few minutes to hydrate. Add up to another Tablespoon of water (for a total of 3 tablespoons) to thin as needed. Use as you would fresh eggs for scrambling, egg washes and omelets, or in baked goods.

For More Information:

What freeze-dryer do we use? A Harvest Right Large. We are a family of 5, sometimes 6, and grow food, so it offers the size we need to preserve. If you are a smaller family, or live where you need the machine to be in the kitchen, a Small or Medium may be a better choice for you.

Want to read what else we have freeze-dried? All the posts.

~Sarah

Freeze Drying · Preserving

Freeze-drying Frozen Vegetables

May 3, 2024May 3, 2024 Sarah

One of the simplest things we can preserve in our Harvest Right Freeze-dryer is frozen vegetables. A couple of times a year, we run batches to preserve and tuck away. Where we live power outages are a real issue in winter months, and I don’t like keeping a lot in the freezer. I have lost too much food over the years to 3-4 day outages. Once we have freeze-dried the food and sealed it up, we have 1o to 25 years time. Which is quite a long time.

We shop at a restaurant supply store and pick up 5-pound bags of frozen vegetables: pes, petite peas, sweet corn, mixed chopped vegetables, green beans, sliced carrots, and such. The prices at restaurant supply stores are extremely affordable compared to grocery store prices. Here in Western Washington, a 16-ounce bag of frozen vegetables ranges from nearly $3 for store brand to well over $6. The store brand quality is rarely good. In the restaurant supply store, I have found the quality is far better, and the prices range from around $1 a pound to under $2. Which makes it very affordable.

Watching sales is also one way to do it. Buy when it is affordable, and stock up. Then freeze-dry when you have time.

In a large-size unit, I can put 2 to 2½ pounds on each tray. This is tightly packed, but you can always add fewer vegetables.

It’s as simple as spreading the vegetables on the trays and turning on the dryer. It is automatic now. Then pack up and seal.

Why buy frozen vegetables?

Frozen vegetables are blanched beforehand, meaning they are cooked. When you freeze-dry them, they are now “instant” vegetables. Just pour them into soups, rice dishes, and more; they just need to rehydrate. No cooking is needed. And best? You didn’t have to do any of the extra work of blanching (which is a pain to do in the heat of summer).
The vegetables are also already frozen, so just pour them on the freeze-dryer trays and pop them in to dry.

Peas

Corn

Mixed vegetables. The tiny carrot dice are very sweet and great for prepper meals. See here for Pantry Staple Recipes to get a lot of ideas! During those power outages we eat really well.

Harvest Right is having its May Sale from now through May 21st, 2014. This is the equivalent of their annual Black Friday Sale, so if you have been wondering if a freeze-dryer might be for you, take a look. If you are a single person, a Small or Medium will work best. The Large is great for families, and those doing a lot of prepping work.

~Sarah