What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

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.

We had the Peep taste test when they were here this past weekend. One thing about freeze dried foods is that once they’re done and all the moisture is out of them, there’s an intense flavor. For example, apples, strawberries, pineapple, etc. taste like the most amazing, sweet, crunchy fruit ever. My food processor/grater grates...

The post The Freeze Dried Peeps appeared first on Patchwork Times by Judy Laquidara.

Remember I was freeze drying all those avocados? They finished up about 24 hours sooner than I had expected. I ended up with 6 quarts of freeze dried avocado. It isn’t crumbled really fine but it is crumbled. This is what wouldn’t fit into the jars. I didn’t want to go grab a pint and...

The post Guacamole! appeared first on Patchwork Times by Judy Laquidara.

I’m almost always planning ahead and don’t usually screw up as bad as I did this evening. I was so tired from working in the garden at least five hours, cooking, baking bread . . we finished dinner and I told Vince . . “I’ll get the dishwasher loaded and going but I’m honestly too...

The post Poor Planning appeared first on Patchwork Times by Judy Laquidara.

We love chicken pot pie but I’ve never been 100% happy with the ones I make. Last week I was watching Homesteading Family and came across her pot pie video/blog post. I knew that was the next thing I was going to freeze dry so I had taken two big packages of frozeen boneless, skinless...

The post Chicken Pot Pie appeared first on Patchwork Times by Judy Laquidara.

First, let’s talk about the load that just came out of the freeze dryer. Last week we had a casserole of ground beef, rice, mushrooms, green beans and cream of mushroom soup. There may have been other things in there . . that’s all I’m remembering. We had it one night, skipped a few days,...

The post Freeze Drying the Peeps appeared first on Patchwork Times by Judy Laquidara.

When we had chickens, several times I freeze dried eggs. In this post, I had freeze dried 96 eggs in several cycles. That was 8 dozen eggs. In this post, it was 14 dozen. I’ve freeze dried probably more than 200 dozen eggs, mostly form when we had chickens. In this post, I wrote about...

The post Freeze Dried Eggs appeared first on Patchwork Times by Judy Laquidara.

Saturday evening after the freeze dryer finished up, I vacuum sealed the items that had been in there while the freeze dryer defrosted. There was a pint of cilantro that got left in the vacuum chamber so it got left out of the photo. Left Row: 1-1/2 quarts of avocadoMiddle Row: 1 pint of jalapeno,...

The post Another Freeze Dryer Load appeared first on Patchwork Times by Judy Laquidara.

Often I will have four trays of the same thing in the freeze dryer, sometimes two trays of this and two trays of that but today, I have five different things on four trays! That’s kinda crazy but it is pretty. Before loading it this afternoon, I took it all apart and cleaned it. It...

The post Another Load in the Freeze Dryer appeared first on Patchwork Times by Judy Laquidara.

Vince finished up getting everything ready to take to the CPA yesterday morning so he wanted to go and take it all to her. It’s a little ways from here and there’s a restaurant, Cooky’s, in Golden City, MO that we’ve heard good things about and we wanted to eat there so after he dropped...

The post Monday Happenings appeared first on Patchwork Times by Judy Laquidara.

I know I shouldn’t feel bad but I do feel bad when I hardly blog all day. I also know that life goes on and no one is sitting by the computer patiently waiting for a blog post but blogging has been such a big part of my life for so long . . it’s...

The post Almost Done Canning Potatoes appeared first on Patchwork Times by Judy Laquidara.

This was the load I started . . I think it was Saturday afternoon and it was all finished very early Monday morning. The carrots are on the right. The two white-ish jars in the front are mushrooms that I ran through the blender to make powder. There’s a quart and a pint of sliced...

The post Freeze Dried Food in Jars appeared first on Patchwork Times by Judy Laquidara.

When I can purchase fresh food either in season at its peak (carrots now) or food that’s on sale in the grocery store (mushrooms yesterday), I love to preserve them and have them for when I need them. Yesterday I loaded up the freeze dryer and got it running again. I doubt it will be...

The post Another Load in the Freeze Dryer appeared first on Patchwork Times by Judy Laquidara.

I mentioned that we had bought carrots at the Mennonite market Tuesday and the man said they should have more on Friday. We had to run up to visit with the other Mennonite guy so we stopped by the grocery store on the way back. The farmer had not arrived yet . . we were...

The post Fresh Veggies appeared first on Patchwork Times by Judy Laquidara.

Last year I ordered carrots from Azure Standard and they were the sweetest carrots we had ever eaten. Since then, every carrot we’ve tried has fallen short. Several months ago Vince bought carrots at one grocery store and then another. They were tasteless and we actually ended up throwing them in the compost pile. We...

The post Carrots appeared first on Patchwork Times by Judy Laquidara.

When I harvested all the elderberries, I thought about juicing all of them and canning the juice but that’s a lot of heat and less heat usually means more nutrients are retained. It takes 55 – 60 hours per load to freeze dry 4 trays of them and by the time the oil is changed...

The post Elderberries appeared first on Patchwork Times by Judy Laquidara.

I’ve now freeze dried four trays of sweet potato leaves. Actually, I did two trays of leaves and two trays of goji berries twice. Looks like Christmas, huh? The first load I freeze dried, I kept out enough for us to try. I soaked them in water for about 15 minutes, drained them and then...

The post Freeze Drying Sweet Potato Leaves appeared first on Patchwork Times by Judy Laquidara.

I have never freeze dried elderberries and I’m hoping it works! I just stuck two trays of elderberries, one tray of dehydrated goji berries and one tray of “dried” blueberries in the freeze dryer. This morning the freezer dryer finished a load – two trays of sliced apples except one tray had a few tablespoons...

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