Category Archives: Food Preserving

Preserving food through dehydration, freezing, drying or canning. #TexasHomesteader

Dehydrating Fresh Spinach To Enjoy All Year Long!

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by Texas Homesteader ~

I love fresh spinach, and I love that during early spring it produces so prolifically.  We like to eat as much spinach as we can while it’s fresh and crisp but I also want to preserve that delicious, healthy spinach to enjoy later in the season – way after the plants have bolted and are gone.  I experimented with dehydrating fresh spinach this year and I loved the results.  I wrote this piece for one of my favorite publications, Mother Earth News. C’mon y’all – check it out!

Mother Earth News Post - Dehydrated Spinach. I dehydrated fresh spinach to enjoy later in the season - I loved the results! #TaylorMadeHomestead

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Homestead Hack: Use Residual Heat To Dehydrate

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by Texas Homesteader ~
*affiliate link

(Note: Some links in this post are for further information from earlier posts I’ve written. But links preceded with * are affiliate links. If you click them and buy something (almost anything, not just the item noted) I could receive a small purchase. But the price you pay will NOT change. It’s an easy way to support this blog without anything coming out of your pocket. So click often! Thank you!) 

OK by now y’all know I’m a dehydrating fool!  I bought my dream appliance, an *Excalibur 9-tray dehydrator and I think I’m in love! 

I’ve put that thing through the paces, dehydrating all kinds of fruits and veggies. And I’ve even made Italian-flavored tomato leather to just roll out and plop on my homemade French-Bread Pizza. No rehydration needed! I think it’s safe to say I’ve been bitten by the dehydrating bug.

I use many dehydrated veggies in my wintertime simmering Endless Soup. And I use most of my dehydrated fruits as replacement for raisins in my Homemade Pumpkin Granola. 

But I’ve also been dehydrating veggies to grind and use for my own homemade powdered seasoning. I hate to pull out a large dehydrator to dehydrate such small portions, and it almost seems even my other small household model is a bit much. 

Check out today’s Homestead Hack. I’ve found a way to quickly dehydrate small amounts of food for FREE!

Homestead Hack: I make my own powdered seasoning from dried veggies. But I've found a way to dehydrate small amounts of food for FREE! #TexasHomesteader

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Apple Pie Filling Recipe & Water-Bath Canning

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by Texas Homesteader
*contains affiliate link

My sweet aunt shared with me many delicious sweet apples from her tree. Not a few mind you, but a LOT! (as in 5 bushels of a lot!) 

Thankfully this apple pie filling is pretty straightforward and canning it requires just a 20-minute stint in a water-bath canner.  Wanna see how I did it?

This apple pie filling recipe is straightforward. And canning requires just a 20-minute stint in a water-bath canner #TexasHomesteader

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Preserving The Harvest: Dehydrating Onions

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by Texas Homesteader
*affiliate link

Gardening is a fun hobby, but c’mon there’s lots of work involved too. From planting seeds or tender seedlings to standing under that hot summer sun watering, weeding and harvesting. 

Seeing that basket of fresh healthy produce is enough to make it all worthwhile of course. But oftentimes your harvest comes all at once as feast or famine. After putting in all of that tender loving care to your precious garden it’s important to make sure none of your hard works goes to waste.

For instance I harvested my onions when their growing time was up. But how to make sure a whole garden full of onions can be enjoyed instead of being sat aside deteriorating until they’re only compost worthy?  You can bet your hat I won’t be letting my hard work go to waste!

Preserving The Harvest: Dehydrating ONIONS. Don't distress over that glut of onion harvest, preserve it for cooking! See what I did. #TexasHomesteader

 

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Preserving The Harvest: Dehydrated DICED Tomatoes

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By Texas Homesteader ~ 
*contains affiliate link

Tomatoes are the darling of the vegetable garden around these parts. Some like to plant squash, some like peppers. But by golly almost everyone has a tomato bush (or two, or three…) in their garden!

None of my tomatoes will go to waste. Even when they’re producing too fast for me to eat fresh. I like to dice & dehydrate those fresh tomatoes to use in  my wintertime soups. It’s easy!

I'm dicing fresh garden tomatoes, dehydrating them & storing dehydrated tomatoes in the pantry. it replaces an item I used to have to buy. #TexasHomesteader

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MYO Italian Seasoned Tomato Leather – Pizza Night Just Got Faster!

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by Texas Homesteader ~ 
*contains affiliate link

A dear friend told me about dehydrating tomato puree (sometimes seasoned) into a leather. WHAT?? Tomato leather??

Yes, tomato leather can be used to simplify your pizza night. Just plop a tomato leather on top of your crust and start adding fillings. The leather rehydrates as the pizza cooks. Oh yeah, I’ve gotta try this!

Make tomato leather to use for homemade pizzas - just roll it out & start adding toppings!. I decided to give it a go, come see! #TexasHomesteader

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Preserving The Harvest: Dehydrating Plums

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by Texas Homesteader

*affiliate link

I recently acquired two different varieties of ripe plums that totaled about 30 lbs. Now I love fruit, and plums are some of my faves – so sweet, so juicy! But I’m going to have to preserve some of these plums if I’m going to keep them from going bad before they’re all consumed.

I love plum jelly but I’ve made so much jelly lately including apple butter, blueberry jam and even honeysuckle jelly that I don’t need any more in my stockpile. Even though I like to stock my pantry with jellies to sweeten my homemade yogurt, with only two of us at home these days I don’t want to make more than we can use. What else can I do with these delicious plums?

Hummm…  I like to sweeten my homemade pumpkin granola with dried fruit and I recently used the last of my dehydrated jujube fruit. So maybe I can dehydrate these plums into raisin-sized chunks to naturally sweeten my granola?

By making my own dehydrated fruit instead of purchasing it, I've not only saved money but added no packaging to the landfill. Win/Win! #TexasHomesteader

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Using It All: MYO Tomato Powder

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by Texas Homesteader
*contains affiliate link

Recently I had a large quantity of tomatoes to preserve. In the process of making my sauce I removed most of the seeds and tossed them into my compost before I even cooked the tomatoes down.

When the tomatoes were cooked I used a sieve to separate the cooked tomatoes from the skins so I would have smoother sauce. 

Now I read somewhere that instead of throwing them away you can dehydrate the skins and grind them into powder to use to thicken soups or make your own tomato paste.

Oh yeah, I’m *SO* gonna do that!

Instead of throwing away tomato skins, dehydrate & ground them into powder to use to thicken soups or make your own tomato paste. #TexasHomesteader

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