Making Yogurt With Acidophilus Tablets

Making yogurt is a skill that will save you money and also allow you to make several other things, like cream cheese or sour cream, out of plain yogurt.  I have been making yogurt for a few years now and I have tried many different ways and have found what works and doesn't work.  I started making yogurt with regular milk from the grocery store but milk started to get expensive so I switched to using powdered milk.  For a yogurt starter I have tried regular, plain yogurt, dried starters, and even a forever starter that gets used over and over.  They all worked but my goal was to be able to make yogurt without having to use a refrigerated starter.  I do keep plain yogurt in 1/2 C measurements in the freezer, but that will still be a problem if there wasn't electricity.  My husband has always laughed at the fact that you need yogurt to make yogurt, but I think I have found a way around needing refrigeration for a starter.  One of my favorite websites is myfoodstoragecookbook.com  and that is where I learned about acidophilus three billion.

Acidophilus Three Billion is a probiotic that aids in digestion, but it is also the live cultures needed to make yogurt.  Instead of using plain yogurt with live cultures, use the acidophilus tablets instead.  (I bought mine on Amazon, but health food stores should have it too) Take note that the incubation period for the yogurt will be quite a bit longer, like 18-24 hours, before it starts to firm up.  Normally, with a plain yogurt starter, I would get the yogurt started in the morning and it would be setting up in the fridge by dinner time.  I made yogurt with the acidophilus and started incubating at 9am and I let it sit until about 10am the next day.  It wasn't bitter, like yogurt can get, it just took longer to set up.  I also made the yogurt in my Saratoga Jacks Thermal Cooker and that was a great option if I didn't have electricity.   I usually use my yogurt maker, and I'll have to try my next batch with my tablets to see if the yogurt comes out any differently.  


This is how I make yogurt.  You will notice that I don't heat up my milk and then let it cool. If you are using powdered milk you can skip that step.  If you use regular milk from the grocery store you will need to heat up your milk to 180 degrees and then let it cool to 100-110 degrees before adding your starter.  Don't let it cool to under 100 degrees or the starter won't "start".  It will stay in kind of a hibernation state.

Start by putting 3 3/4 C water and 1 C powdered milk into a blender.  Blend until combined.  Allow a few moments for the frothy milk to settle to the top.  You can scoop it off at this point and discard.  I add 1/3 C sugar and 1 T vanilla flavoring to my yogurt unless I am planning on making sour cream with it.  My children really like a little sweetness and flavor to their yogurt. I used to give them honey to mix in but the yogurt would get runny and they wouldn't eat it.  If you really don't care to use the sugar you can try a sugar substitute.  

Pill Crusher that I bought on amazon.com.

Using a pill crusher, crush 3 acidophilus tablets and add to a little of the blended milk.  Add it back to the blender and just stir to combine.  

Pour the milk into a clean, warm quart jar.  This recipe makes enough yogurt for one quart.  (I fill my mason jar with hot water while I make up the yogurt.)

There are several ways to incubate your yogurt but I decided to try my Saratoga Jacks Thermal Cooker.  If you don't have one try a small cooler or wonderbox.  Just make sure to have little or no air space around the jar.  I filled my cooker with the hottest water I could get out of my faucet, which was around 125 degrees.  Anything hotter will kill your starter.  After 8 hours I did switch out my water for hot water again.  The yogurt won't set up if it is too cool either.  Try to keep it above 110 degrees.  Don't let all of the temperature info scare you away from making yogurt.  It really isn't as hard as it may seem.  

Here is my yogurt after about 24 hours of incubation.  It is now in the fridge cooling off.  I tasted it and it was smooth, creamy, and just sweet enough.

Powdered Milk Yogurt Recipe

3 3/4 C warm tap water
1 C non-instant powdered milk (milk from the cannery)
2-4 T plain yogurt with active cultures OR 3 Acidophilus tablets, crushed
1/3 C sugar
1 T vanilla


Combine the water and powdered milk in a blender or use an emulsion blender.  Scoop off the foam.  Add the sugar and vanilla and blend.  Add the starter to a little of the milk from the blender and stir to combine, then add back to blended milk.  Use a spoon and stir gently to combine.  Pour into a warmed quart mason jar and incubate.  Wrap tightly in towels and place in a cooler or use a thermal cooker.  Fill the thermal cooker with hot tap water and place mason jar inside.  If using a yogurt starter your yogurt will be ready after about 8 hours.  Place in fridge and allow to firm up.  The thermal cooker can take up to 24 hours.  I checked it about every 8 hours.  

I filled my jars with warm water to heat them up.

Now you can have yogurt anytime, even in an emergency.  The cooling of the yogurt after incubation could be done with a cooler that has been buried under ground (with the lid open at the top) or in cold storage, but that is a whole other post :)


Click HERE to view another post on how I made yogurt in my yogurt maker and even how I made yogurt cream cheese :)

Prepare Today Homemade-- Shelf Stable Cheesecake Recipe

My cheesecake drama, you can read about here, actually turned into an experiment on how to use cream cheese powder.  I purchased a #10 can of cream cheese powder from Honeyville Grain and then attempted to make a no-bake cheesecake out of it.  Attempted because there aren't a lot of instructions on the side of the can to know how to reconstitute it! I asked a friend of mine to help me with measurements and she said 1 1/2 Cups of powdered cream cheese will equal 1 8oz. block of cream cheese.  Adding water to get the right consistency is what took a little experimenting.  I only used about a 1/2 cup of water to get a cream cheese texture that I could mix easily with a hand mixer.  So watch the water amounts when you are making this, you can always add more.

 Shelf stable whipping cream made by Gossner's is one of my favorite items to have in my food storage.  It can be used for whipped cream, you can make butter out of it, and it is great in soups.  I buy mine from Honeyville in Salt Lake City.  Totally worth it to have on hand!  And the cream cheese powder is now another one of my favorite shelf stable ingredients.  I picked that up at Honeyville as well.  It runs about $28 online right now.  I was not compensated for this post.  These are truly products that I have in my storage and that I use. 

As you can see from the picture I figured out this cheesecake craziness!  Much better than my first runny mess of a cheesecake attempt.  You can see that disaster in my last post, read it HERE. I was making the cheesecake for a preparedness class at church so I used a 13x9 pan to feed a crowd instead of a pie pan.  

The crust is simple, I used the same recipe from my last post HERE,  which has graham cracker crumbs, sugar, powdered butter, and then I added the water to reconsitute the powdered butter. 

I mixed it up with a fork and then used my hands to really mix it well.  Then I firmly patted it down into the 13x9 pan and let it chill in the fridge.

Now, onto the making of the filling.  I actually made two different cheesecakes so I could try out my shelf stable heavy cream in one of them.  The other recipe uses sweetened condensed milk with the cream cheese. 

No-Bake Cheesecake Using Heavy Cream

3 C powdered cream cheese (or 2 8oz packages cream cheese)

1/2 C- 1 C water (don't add the water if using real cream cheese)

2 t lemon juice

16oz (1 pint) heavy whipping cream, chilled

1/3 C sugar

Using a hand mixer blend the powdered cream cheese with a half cup of the water.  Slowly add more water until you reach a cream cheese texture.  Don't add too much water!  You don't want it runny. Mix in the lemon juice until well blended.

Add in the whipping cream and mix on medium high until stiff peaks form.  Add in the sugar and mix well.  Mixture should be slightly thick, not runny.  Pour into prepared graham cracker crust and chill at least 2 hours. 

This is the cream cheese powder mixed with a little water.  Don't let it get too thinned out or the cheesecake won't set up.  The cream cheese powder does thicken when it sits in the fridge. 

This is the mixture after adding in the lemon juice and the whipping cream. See the stiff peaks in the middle of the creamed mixture. 

The sugar gets mixed in lastly and mixed well.

Spread the mixture over the crust and chill. 

No-Bake Cheesecake With Sweetened Condensed Milk

Toothpicks held up the cover :)

Sweetened Condensed Milk

In a blender add:

1/2 C hot water

1 C non-instant powdered milk

1 C sugar

3 T melted butter (3 T butter powder+3/4 t water)

Blend until mixed well. Or substitute 1 14oz can sweetened condensed milk.

In a mixing bowl add:

3 C cream cheese powder (or 2 8oz packages cream cheese)

1/2 C-1 C water (don't add the water if using real cream cheese)

Combine the cream cheese powder and water in bowl with hand mixer, slowly add 1/2 C water until well blended, smooth, and has a cream cheese texture. Add more water as needed to achieve the right cream cheese consistency. 
Add in:

2 t lemon juice

1 t vanilla

Blend well.  Add in the sweetened condensed milk from the blender, or 1 can sweetened condensed milk.  Blend well with hand mixer.  Pour into prepared graham cracker crust and chill at least 2 hours. 

This is the cream cheese powder, lemon juice, and vanilla mixed together.  

In goes the homemade sweetened condensed milk.

Chilled and ready for serving. I needed to transport this to where I was teaching and I first put aluminum foil over the top...see where it stuck to the top of the cheesecake!  I added toothpicks to hold up the foil.  I didn't want to mess it up even more by pulling them out before taking the photo. 

The cheesecake made with the shelf stable whipping cream set up a little better and had a firmer texture.  It also cut and held up on a plate better than the sweetened condensed milk version, which was kind of sticky. I preferred the cheesecake made with whipping cream because it had a lighter texture and wasn't too sweet. But they both tasted great!  It's always smart to have options when it comes to food storage. If plan A doesn't work, you can fall back to plan B or even plan C.  I will probably use real cream cheese to make these recipes most often, but knowing I have another option, if the situation arose that I needed one, is a comforting feeling.

Everything In Its Place...Organizing The Storage Room

How are all of your January resolutions going? Did you read my last post on my food storage goal for 2015?  Click HERE is you missed it. Since it's still January, I'm going to continue with the organizing theme.  Remember...

A house of order can transcend to all aspects of our lives, but let's start with our food storage.  I hope you were all able to accomplish the organizing assignment in the last post.  The assignment was to inventory your food storage pantry or storage room.  This may seem monumental but I promise it will help in the long run of having a useable food storage system.  (Scroll down the page to see a picture of how I keep an inventory on a white board of all my #10 cans.)

After inventorying your food and supplies the next step is to organize your food into a system that functions for you.  

I am going to show you what works for me and what keeps my food rotated and useable, but there are many other ways to organize your food storage and I'll mention those at the end of the post. 

I have been blessed with a large storage room where I keep all of my extra smaller cans, #10 cans, bulk foods, paper goods, etc.  This is the room that I go to when I need to refill the containers in my kitchen pantry.  The pictures in this post are going to be dark, I apologize but there isn't any natural lighting in this room. Which is a good thing for food storage!  Remember that light, temperature, moisture and bugs/pests all need to be considered when you pick an area for your food storage. 

In my storage room I try to group "like" items together.  That way I usually know where everything is and goes.  I group my #10 cans in a different area then my smaller cans.  The smaller cans are stored in my kitchen and I only keep them out in the storage room when I have too many to fit in the kitchen. 

This is a small sampling of how I organize my #10 cans of dehydrated and freeze-dried foods. 

I have most of my fruits and veggies grouped together.  This helps with knowing how much I have, but it also helps my kids know where things are when they are sent out to the storage room to grab something for me.  The powdered milk and other dairy items like sour cream powder, buttermilk powder, powdered eggs, freeze-dried cheese, powdered shortening, and powdered butter all get stored together.  I also have baking supplies like baking powder, baking soda, and cocoa powder on that shelf.  There is actually a shelf below the milk shelf and it holds my salt, oils, cornstarch and any other baking items that I might buy in bulk.  

How do you store oddly shaped containers, like condiments?

I use the free boxes I get from case lot sales and food storage retailers to group them all together on a shelf.  I also live in earthquake territory and I feel this gives me added protection if the room started shaking.  I really need to instal a small lip on my shelves so things don't go sliding off, but that is on the to-do list :)

All of my bulk items like wheat, oats, rice, sugar, etc. are stored in buckets around the perimeter of my storage room.

I love gamma lids!!  They make it so easy to open and close, and it doesn't feel like such a chore when I need to refill my kitchen pantry containers.  It is very dry where I live so I don't use the mylar bags inside of my bulk buckets.  I pour the bulk bags directly into my buckets.  And I am also comfortable resting them directly on the concrete.  Some may not feel comfortable doing that, but my room doesn't fluctuate in temperature too much and the concrete doesn't get wet.  I feel the chemicals from the concrete are not leaching into my buckets.  This is one of those examples of what works for me may not work for you ;)

And finally, this is how I keep track of all those #10 cans of food.

In all honesty here....this is my goal....to update this white board.  Notice I didn't take the picture too close...haha.  This proves I'm not perfect and I need a food storage refresher too.  The cans that get used the most are the fruits and veggies, so they need to be updated first.  But this is how I keep a visual of what I have.  Some cans are things that I won't use unless I absolutely have too, like the canned cheese and butter.  But having it listed on the board with hash marks allows me to know at a glance what I have in my storage room.  

Other Food Storage Options

 Some people may like using the commercial can rotater systems, but I don't have the room for them.  I have found that I can easily add newer cans to the back of my shelf without having a rotating shelf.  But you can decide if that will work for you.  You can also store like items together or groups of ingredients into complete meals.  Like the meal in a bag idea. Or maybe you like to make meals in a jar. Or maybe storing your food like the grocery store, with different types of food together, like Italian, Mexican.  I know of some people who like to store their food according to breakfast, lunch, or dinner meals.  It's all up to you!! It is really up to what works for you so you will USE your food storage!

Remember this rule with any food storage system....

F.I.F.O

This is how you rotate your food!  Always place the newer foods in the back.  This may seem tedious and hard to do but knowing you are using the oldest food first will save you a lot of $$.  Take the few minutes when you buy your food to put them in the proper place...behind the older food! 

Food Storage in Smaller Homes 

Many of us may live in smaller homes or apartments.  How is is possible to have food storage....and to store the larger amounts of food needed?

• Think of the space under the beds in your homes.  For long-term foods (#10 cans that lasts 20+ years) they can be stored in their boxes under a bed.  Think about taking the bed off the frame and using the food storage as the base.  The food from the cannery like rice, wheat, oats, powdered milk, would all work great for this option.  They don't need used as often. 
• Do you have extra space above your kitchen cabinets?  This unused space could easily store cans of food.  
• Instead of end tables, place stacked cans under a tablecloth and use a wood or glass topper to create a small table.  
• The space behind your sofa and the wall can hold food storage as well.  It can be covered with a cloth or if you know someone handy, they could build a cover for it out of wood. 
• Do you use all that extra closet space on the shelf above your clothes?  Think of how high you could stack #10 cans if they went all the way to the ceiling of the closet.  
• Buy several over the door pocket hangers, that are made for shoes, and you'll have a great area for smaller items. Think of all the doors and closets that you have and think if an over the door organizer would work there.  

**All of the above ideas take organization to a new level.  You will need to have a record of what you have stored and where you put it.  Keep a notebook with every item listed, where you put it, how much you have stored, and the expiration date.

It takes a little creativity and thinking outside of the box, but I know if you make it a priority to have your food storage you will be blessed.  Thoughts and ideas will come to your mind as you pray to know how to prepare for your family.  

Butter Drought

Butter is one amazing food.  Cooking without butter would leave our plates really dry and flavorless.  I'm no Paula Deen but I do love butter in my cookies, quick breads, and on top of baked potatoes.  Have you seen the price of butter at the grocery store lately?!?!  It's almost $4.00 a pound!  That is crazy!  Last fall I bought butter for $1.50 and that was a stock up price.  I saw butter for $2.97 at my grocery store and I bought all I could.  This is a good reminder of why we need to prepare.  Inflation!!  Buy food now while it's affordable.  

*remember to have a back up (or two) for your fresh foods*

Usually I have about 20lbs of butter in my freezer and it is enough to get us through until the next sale at the grocery store. About 2 weeks ago I was down to my last pound of butter.  I didn't worry because I figured a sale was just around the corner.  But, no sale came.  Meanwhile, to get us through the butter drought, I made some butter from shelf stable cream that I had in my storage.  Shelf stable cream is my first choice for spreadable butter.  It's delicious and tastes like fresh butter.  We wanted to savor it though, and so it was only used it for toast.  Click HERE to see how I made the butter. Even though it's delicious, it would take a lot of shelf-stable cream, to make butter, to use every time I needed it for a recipe.

 Powdered butter is my go-to option if fresh butter isn't available.  I still wanted to bake and so my second choice for shelf stable butter is Thrive's butter powder.  I LOVE Thrive's butter powder.  You can read how I taste tesed it HERE.  I was able to bake cookies, make mashed potatoes, pumpkin muffins, and even a cream sauce for macaroni and cheese, and it all worked. It is a really amazing product.  I highly recommend it! Sign up for their emails and buy a can when they have a sale.  (A #10 can is around $28.00 right now on thrive.com and a #10 can equals 24 sticks of butter. Which makes it around $4.60 a pound. I have only purchased my powdered butter when it was on sale to lower my price per pound. )

I am hoping that my butter drought will be over as soon as the holidays are here.  Most baking supplies will be on sale in the next few months.  But if the demand is high and supply is low....our price at the store will skyrocket.  Food storage isn't just for the end of the world. 

Using the FoodSaver to Seal Dry Goods

Preserving and extending the life of food is important when you are planning on what food to add to your food storage .  Food is expensive and if there is a way to extend the shelf life by a couple of years, it's worth looking into.  There is a simple and relatively inexpensive way to prolong the life of food, and it's called a Foodsaver.  I'm sure a lot of you have heard of, or even use a foodsaver, but it is also a great little appliance for sealing dried foods.  I use my foodsaver and mason jars (or other food safe jars that have a metal lid, like spaghetti sauce jars) to seal up dried foods like candy, spices, chocolate chips, food from #10 cans, rice, beans, wheat, dehydrated foods...the list can go on and on. 

 

Freeze-dried cheese and cocoa powder sealed in mason jars.

The FoodSaver

 

I bought my foodsaver a few years ago on Ebay for around $50, and the tall canister I found on Amazon for about $20.  The canister is designed for sealing food inside of it, but it also works to seal mason jars. It acts like an air chamber that eliminates all air from the mason jar.  Today I am sealing candy, a must have in our food storage.  A store in my neighborhood is closing and all candy was 50% off.   I couldn't pass that deal up and ended up buying a bag to store for later chocolate cravings.  Besides cravings, it's important to have comfort foods, normal foods, in your storage.  This will give your family a sense of normalcy in an emergency.  Plus it also comes in handy when you need to make a treat last minute!!



When looking for a Foodsaver, make sure it has a port on the front of it. It is necessary to connect a hose from the base unit to the canister to suck all the air out.   I don't use my foodsaver for sealing using foodsaver bags, which most people want it for, so I bought the smallest unit I could find.

The port holds the hose that will attach to the Foodsaver canister, which sucks all of the air out of the glass jars. 


Now the fun begins.  Decide what you want to seal and put it into mason jars.  Every jar size will work.  I have sealed every size, from tiny jelly jars to half gallon jars.  And it is quite simple to do, unlike the teenage girl in the photo.  She's in a dramatic phase!  My 6 year old had no problem stuffing candy into the jars.  And don't worry about empty space in the jars, this isn't like canning, it will still seal with air pockets.

Some candy will already be in packages and filled with air.  I make a small cut in the bags to enable air to escape while sealing. Otherwise the bag will fill up with air, like a balloon, and take up too much space in the mason jar.  Yes, you could just pour the candy into the jar, but I think it stays fresher when they are in the original packaging. 

After filling the mason jar, add a lid and band.  This is really important...Don't tighten the lid too tight!!  Twist the ring on until just tightened, not any tighter.

Place the jar into the canister and attach the hose. 

On my machine there are stars on the corners and that is where you press, with both hands, to start the machine.  My 6 year old is the one using the machine in the photo.  She loves to help!

The machine does all the work for you.  It will make a loud humming noise while working but just let it do its thing.  It will almost be over when a green light goes on.  Wait for the green light to blink, then hit cancel, and take the hose off of the canister, not the machine end.

After taking off the hose, press the grey button on top of the canister and hold it down until all the air has escaped.  You'll be able to tell by sound when the air is done.  It sounds like a balloon losing air.

Your mason jar is now sealed!  Check the lid on your jar to see if it clicks when you press on it.  If it still moves up and down you will have to re-seal it. 

 Problem Solving When a Jar Doesn't Seal

•  Check the rim of the jar and make sure it is clean,  check the underside of the lid too. You don't want any food particles or dirt/dust to be on a jar or lid. 
• Always check glass jars for nicks or scratches especially along the rim of the jar.  Jars with defects shouldn't be used for food any longer. 
• Old or used lids may not seal very well.  Use new lids for best results.
• It you still can't get a seal, place a lid upside down on the original lid and try sealing again.  This usually solves the problem.
• Your ring may be screwed on too tightly.  Check how tightly you turned the ring on the lid.  Finger tight, not screwed on all the way.
• If you are sealing powdered items, such as spices, flour, baking soda, cake mixes, etc. place a muffin liner, or cut-to-fit paper towel, in the top of the jar before putting the lid and ring on.  This will create a barrier between the powdered item and the foodsaver.  You don't want fine food particles getting into your foodsaver hose.  It WILL ruin your foodsaver.  
• When using pickle jars, spaghetti sauce jars, and other food safe jars, clean them well!  If the lids aren't clean it may not seal.  I like the smaller pickle relish and jam jars for sealing extra spices in. 

It only took about 10 minutes to finish all the jars in the picture.  I take the rings off and store the jars on a shelf in my storage room.  And I have been know to hide the candy jars where they aren't easily accessible.  That helps the kids forget that we have them.  Ok, it helps ME forget we have them :)  Once on the shelf the jars should have a life of 2-5 years.  I have read varying time frames for the shelf life of sealed food in mason jars.  I always go with my own intuition and my sight, smell, and taste of something before eating it.  If it passes those tests, we eat it.  Most of the time food will lose nutrients, but won't be bad and make you sick. 

A simple and affordable way to preserve food and extend the shelf-life.  All in one little machine! Check your local thrift stores and garage sales for these amazing little contraptions.  People love to try the latest craze and the foodsaver was one of those crazes a few years ago.  I found a large canister, brand new in the original wrapping, at a second hand store for $2.  Just make sure the foodsaver unit has a port on the front and you'll be ready to start sealing!

Food Storage In A Bottle

While shopping the other day I noticed these 3L water bottles.  

 What is so cool about them is they stack!!!

They would work great for storing dry goods, beans, rice, wheat, etc.  Throw in a oxygen packet and they are good to go!

This is a view of the bottom to show you how they stack.  They are 3 liter bottles and they were only $1 at Walmart.  I also saw them for $.78 at my local grocery store.  Totally affordable and then you are also only drinking water to empty the water bottle and not soda!! I am always asking family for their soda bottles because I don't want to drink the soda or pour it out.  I haven't blogged for awhile, life has been CRAZY, and when I saw these I had to post about them.  They are a great idea for water storage, but also for dry goods and I was so excited.  (doesn't take much does it :)

Thrive Life Butter Powder

There are a few foods that will make or break a recipe when it comes to food in #10 cans.  Powdered cheese, butter, sour cream, eggs, etc. will be different from one company to another, and that will determine the outcome of a dish. I usually don't mind using a generic version of grocery store foods because I don't see a big difference in quality, but I have learned, by trial and error, that there is a big difference between the many food storage companies out there today.

One example is butter powder.  I really don't like to mention company names when I don't like a certain product, so I am just going to say that I have 3 different butter powders at my house right now that I don't like to use in my cooking.  They have an obvious non-butter taste and don't even smell close to real butter.  I have read on several blogs that Thrive Life has a really good butter powder.  I finally broke down and paid the $25.49 + shipping and ordered a #10 can of it.  I am so glad that I did!!!!  

The first thing I noticed right away when I opened the can is it smelled like butter.  It was light in color and not a fake yellowy color.  I mixed a small amount with a little bit of water and it reconstituted into a buttery spread.  It spread onto bread so easily and tasted good too!  It won't make a cube of butter but if you need some butter on your toast, this would work!!  I have since made brownies and cookies with the butter powder.  The brownies worked great and I couldn't taste any fake buttery flavor at all.  But the cookies were another story.  My one complaint for butter powder from all companies are the reconstituting directions!!!!  There are none for baking!!  I want to know how much water I add to the butter powder for say, 1 C of butter in a recipe.  I tried looking online and I couldn't find anything.  So if any of you know, please send me in the right direction :) That is how I messed up my cookie recipe.  It called for 1 C of butter, so I added 1 C of powder to my bowl and slowly added water.  I added too much water and then had to add extra flour.  I couldn't ever get the batter to form a cookie dough, so I baked it in a 13x9 pan and we had cookie brownies.  It still tasted good, but I need to research the water to powder ratio some more.  Again the "cookies" tasted like they should without an off taste that I noticed with other butter powders.

Out of the several butter powders that I have used I highly recommend Thrive Life's Butter Powder.  Click here to see more information.

Dehydrate Those Leftovers!

One of the many things that I love about my new home is being able to have my larger kitchen appliances stored right in the kitchen area and not in the basement storage room.  I am more likely to use my dehydrator, canner, wheat grinder, etc. when they are accessible.  After preparing dinner tonight I had a half a bag of spinach leftover, so I pulled out my dehydrator, spread out those extra leaves and saved them for another meal.  It was such a chore before when I had to hike downstairs and carry up the dehydrator.  Now it is stored right in my kitchen for use anytime.  I know not everyone will have the kitchen space to store larger food storage appliances, but it has helped me to use them more often. 

When they are finished dehydrating I will have a small amount of dried spinach leaves that I will store in a mason jar and then make air tight with my foodsaver.  They will stay fresh in the mason jar for years.  (This is my estimation and how long I feel comfortable storing my items.  Check dehydrating books for a more accurate guideline.)  One of my favorite tips is to save the leftover veggies from a weeks worth of meals, dehydrate them, and store for use in soups.  There will be a variety of veggies depending on what you serve for dinner, but it saves money when they are being used again because no one really wants leftover veggies from the fridge.  I also keep my eye out for "manager specials" at my local grocery store.  Produce will be marked down that is closing in on its expiration date and that is when I snatch it up for dehydrating.  Many shoppers see that manager's special sticker and they shy away thinking it is rotting veggies, but it works perfectly for dehydrating.  Also, think twice before throwing away leftovers.  Soups, casseroles, even rice can be dehydrated for use in quick dinners, camping food, and 72-hour kit meals.  There are quite a few books out there and online if you are interested in dehydrating your food.  I love the Dehydrator Bible for dehydrating, it is filled with step by step information on every fruit and veggie that you can think of.  Dehydrating is quite a simple process and the results are very rewarding, so think of those leftovers in a new light and dehydrate them!