Morning everyone!
Todays post is about anything other than Covid or my Heart. All is well, but I'm just wanting to be Frugal maven today.
Last early spring, I think around March or so, we invested in a dehydrator. Now when I say "Invested" I mean we bought one. It wasn't much; about $45-$50. I felt it would go much faster drying herbs for storage, primarily basil. It did an amazing job dehydrating herbs. Things like Herbs, Kale, Lettuce, Spinach, Beet greens, etc. you know, leafy things, dried out very fast. As a result, I was able to put away quite a bit of leafy greens. The plan for that was to add them to soups, stew, and casseroles to give them a nutritional boost. That plan has worked very well. So chalk one up for the dehydrator there.
Over the last week, I've begun "playing" with some of my other things to see how they do; things like peppers, onions, and those wonderful cherry tomatoes I dried. I have to say I am thrilled! Plus I'm pretty proud of myself! Heh Heh.
In the summer my husband likes Everything Bagels with cream cheese, sliced garden fresh tomatoes, and seasoned with salt, pepper, and garlic powder. The other day I fixed that meal, only instead of the garden fresh tomato, I crushed the dried tomatoes and sprinkled them across the top. He liked it! Yay! These are also good to eat as a snack; like chips!
Yesterday I was making up mixes to go into the pantry for convenience. I keep Taco seasoning mix, and Spaghetti mix made up. It saves having to drag out every spice to make a meal. Very nice. I started to make up the Taco seasoning mix and was reminded that it calls for dried onion, not onion powder. Light bulb moment. I dried some onion ! I took it out, poured it into my blender and just pulsed it a few times to make it a little smaller. I had dried it in rings cause there is less crying slicing an onion compared to chopping an onion. I ended up with exactly what I needed for the mix, and the rest I turned into onion powder. It worked so well!
Next up! We had sloppy joes last night for dinner and I wanted to try out my bell peppers. Again, I dried these in strips or rings to save time. I ended up with a 2 quart jar of dried bell peppers. That's a lot of peppers. I pulled out some dried peppers, and "chopped" them simply by crushing them with my rolling pin. Easy breezy!
To reconstitute anything I use, I simply put them into a dish, cover with boiling water, and wait about 15 minutes. If I'm adding them to soups, I just add. I don't reconstitute first.
Guys I'm so happy with my little dehydrator! Since these items were dried instead of frozen, I didn't take up freezer space. Since they aren't canned, I didn't take up valuable pantry space, and even though I dried them in bigger pieces, I don't have to chop anything!
All in all this was a good investment.
If you're interested in my Taco Seasoning mix, you can catch it on my "Mixes and Condiments" page.
Here is my Spaghetti Sauce Mix:
This will fill a quart jar and make 12 servings of mix. Use 2.33 TBS of the mix for a quart of tomato sauce with or without meat.
4 TBS ONION POWDER
2 TBS GARLIC POWDER
4 TBS DRY BASIL
1 TBS OREGANO
12 TBS SUGAR
4 TBS SALT
Mix all together and store in a quart size jar or container.
No comments:
Post a Comment