DEHYDRATING DAY!

I’ve been dehydrating all day, while I’ve been cleaning, and playing on the computer (okay, that’s work, too – I’ve been writing, studying, planning….) — hey! I am on vacation, yes?

So, anyway, I took some leaves out of the dehydrator this morning, but I decided to wait until the Magic Bullet jar was dry (rather than dry it, duh!), and wait until the rest of the trays were dry as well.  So, anyway, when I got around to wanting to grind up those leaves, they were damp – it was like they saw it was raining outside and they decided they were thirsty. They were all wilted, so I had to put them back in the dehydrator for a while (I won’t do that again!)

Well, now, after a whole day of dehydrating, I got about 2 tablespoons more of powder, and I had to graduate to a quart jar.  Of course, since I had just scrubbed the floor on my hands and knees, mind you, I spilled some on the floor!  Never mind! When I open that jar, it smells really good (and I am that girl who does not like salads!)  

I’m thinking of grating up some radishes and turnips and adding them to the mix.  Or maybe I will just start another kind of jar, and mix them when I’m using them.  I keep thinking about Spike , my main seasoning – it’s a salt-free mix of an assortment of dried vegetables (I think it was originally intended to help people reduce dietary salt, although there is a Spike with salt)  So, anyway, if I grate up some vegetables and put them in the dehydrator, and then grind them up into powder and mix them up… well, hey! I could have my own Spike mix going.

Since this green powder I have going smells so good, I am starting to think that I could put 3 or 4 T into hot water and have an ultra-healthy “salad” soup. Add some cashews for creaminess…. who knows?  I am very grateful for my Healthy Homesteader class that woke me up to this idea.  Not only have I learned a lot, I have also become aware that many people who enjoy preparing foods in the way I do call themselves homesteaders. Thus have I been opened to a whole new network of like-minded people.  When I was offered the opportunity to take a Tera Warner course, I chose this one more or less out of the blue, never imagining how much it would allow me to expand my horizons.

I have a tray filled with 5 large white turnips-worth of grated turnips (I processed them in my food processor to a coarse grind – think chunky applesauce texture) and spread them on a teflex sheet placed over the plastic tray of my dehydrator

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MISCELLANEOUS UPDATES: WHAT’S DEHYDRATING AND MY SA RESCUED KNIFE

POST #941
The turnips I got in last week’s and this week’s CSA shares came with beautiful greens.  Since last week’s Healthy Homesteading lesson called for dehydrating greens to make a super-green powder, most of the greens that I’ve gotten in the first two CSA shares have gone into the dehydrator.  Tonight, the turnip greens are in there with the arugula (you can like arugula all you want, but, to me, it smells like dirty feet)  I still have some more arugula and turnip greens to put in tomorrow when these come out.  The romaine may end up in there, as well.  My super-green jar is half full.  So far, I have put in a bunch of mustard greens, a bunch of collards, and a bunch of kale (I think that what makes it a super-green powder may be that a bunch – almost a pound – of greens dehydrated ends up being a few tablespoonfuls of powder).

On to other things…

The horribly mistreated, but well-made Japanese knife that I found at Salvation Army is coming along well.  I only have a basic kitchen knife sharpener, but the knicks in the blade are slowly smoothing out.  I don’t know that I’ll be able to smooth out the bent point, but the bend is not too bad, and it doesn’t impeded chopping.  This is on its way to becoming a go-to knife in my kitchen. I let it chop things from time to time, and, each time, I run it through the sharpener.