What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

Yesterday the shredded chicken finished up in the freeze dryer. Start to finish, it took 44 hours, 48 minutes. I’m still working on clearing out some freezer space. I took out four packages of chicken breasts and defrosted those. Each package had two huge breasts, four were boneless, skinless and two had bones and skin....

Last week I mentioned that we were almost out of dry soup mixes. During the winter we eat a lot of soup. In the summer, we eat a fair amount of soup. Sometimes soup and a salad are perfect . . even when it’s super hot outside. Having a variety of soup mixes works well...

Friday night as soon as Vince had the freeze dryer pump hooked up, I stuck the loads in that had been in the freezer waiting for the new pump. It took 43 hours to complete the cycle. That’s one half gallon jar and one pint jar of the ground beef pucks. They’re actually for when...

The new freeze dryer vacuum pump arrived today. I had been watching the tracking so I was expecting it. Thank goodness they sent it Fed Ex! Not what this post is about but it’s funny/sad . . I sent a package on January 29. I sent it priority mail, paid for the shipping at home,...

I guess I’m not a very forgiving friend!

I mentioned a few weeks ago how happy I am with the freeze dried ground beef. I have freeze dried ground beef that I browned and added nothing (not even salt); ground beef that I browned with onions, garlic and green peppers; ground beef patties, raw ground beef. I only dried three patties just to...

I’ve had the Harvest Right freeze dryer for 6-1/2 years now. During the summer, it runs probably 80% of the time – day and night. This time of year, there’s not a lot to freeze dry but if I find something on sale – bell peppers, zucchini, fruit, etc., I’ll get enough to fill the...

The freeze dryer finished last night about 10:30 so the zucchini took less time than I thought it would. Remember the little container that held two cups of shredded zucchini and weighed 300 grams? After drying, the zucchini weighed 15 grams. Huge difference. LOTS of water in zucchini. I ended up with three half gallon...

Tuesday I had about 20 zucchini. I had been saving them for several days and then picked everything left on the vine. I’ve never been happy with freezing or canning zucchini or yellow squash for future use so this year, I shredded all the zucchini to make zucchini bread. You may remember that about a...

Yesterday evening the freeze dryer finished the load of blueberries and mushrooms. The mushrooms filled five quart jars and the blueberries filled one quart jar. This was the first time I’ve freeze dried blueberries whole and they are so delicious! It’s like candy. I’m betting once Vince tastes them, he will be wanting to keep...

Tuesday I harvested a big bowl of dead nettle from an area where the dogs do not go, then rinsed it well, left it on a towel to dry for a while, then picked the leaves off the stem. I mostly use the dried leaves for making a tea. The leaves can be left to...

I am happy this month has ended. I can a lot but trying to do something every day, and work around the things that would HAVE to be done in a day or two . . it was a lot of work. For things going into the freeze dryer, when they were done I vacuum...

I’ve gotten behind on reporting. IF I do this again next year, I’m going to do weekly reports instead of daily reports. The three things I have not reported: My plans for the last few days of August:

I’m not sure the Every Bit Counts Challenge has real rules but I had hoped not to repeat anything but today is a repeat. I can only do so much so this has to count for today. Yesterday I picked a good bit of basil. I wasn’t really sure what I was going to do...

I had to giggle when I took the cream cheese, okra and tomato peelings out of the freeze dryer today. First, the tomato peelings covered 1-1/2 trays in the freeze dryer. I dumped those in the blender and turned them into powder. It was enough to fill one quarter pint jar. That’s about 24 teaspoons....

Today’s project – This is probably the truest interpretation of the Every Bit Counts Challenge. Today it’s bits and pieces of several things going into the freeze dryer. First is 1-1/2 trays of tomato skins. Once these are dry, I will run them through the blender. One of my favorite ways to use this is...

The post Every Day Counts – Day 3 appeared first on Patchwork Times by Judy Laquidara.

Today’s project – salsa! I wish I had hundreds of pounds of tomatoes. There are so many fun tomato products to can. Today’s salsa is a bit spicy but when we’re adding it to other dishes, like tacos or enchiladas or using it as a dressing on a taco salad, the spicy is good. If...

The post Every Bit Counts, Day 2 appeared first on Patchwork Times by Judy Laquidara.

The Every Day Counts Challenge was started (as far as I know) by Jessica at Three Rivers Homestead. Sarah at Living Traditions Homestead has a great video explaining the challenge. The main point of the challenge is to preserve something every day in August. I’m not guaranteeing that I will be able to preserve/can something...

The post Every Bit Counts Challenge Day 1 appeared first on Patchwork Times by Judy Laquidara.

I’m keeping the freeze dryer busy or . . is the freeze dryer keeping me busy?

Last night, the weirdest thing happened when I was vacuum sealing the jars from the freeze dryer. I had them all in the vacuum pot and as soon as I turned it on, I heard a weird noise. It sounded like I hadn’t put the lid on tight and it settled but I knew that...

The post Freeze Drying From The Garden appeared first on Patchwork Times by Judy Laquidara.