by Texas Homesteader ~
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When my vegetable garden gives me lots of those ripe, delicious tomatoes, I want to make sure none go to waste.
I’ve found that after we’ve eaten as many fresh as we could, I like to pop some in the freezer for later. But if I roast them first they’re more powerfully flavored and ready to use in my recipes.
by Texas Homesteader ~
Making homemade chicken broth is beyond easy, super healthy and makes use of bones/trimmings that used to be just thrown away!
And there’s a special ingredient to make it more calcium rich. Check it out.
I was dehydrating lots of vegetables from my garden. Each one was placed in a repurposed glass jar in my pantry. Then I decided to assemble various dry veggies, add some seasoning and make dehydrated salsa in a jar as a gift. The gift recipients LOVED IT!
By Texas Homesteader ~
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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!
by Texas Homesteader
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This year I planted heirloom sugar pumpkins in my garden. And when it was time to harvest them I knew I’d first be able to enjoy them for a bit as decoration. I love the way those little pumpkins looked propped on our antique cast-iron Franklin stove.
But several days later I was in the kitchen enjoying the last of my favorite pumpkin granola. I knew that since I planted those delicious pumpkins for use in my granola it was time to cook those babies down into pumpkin puree.
by Texas Homesteader ~
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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!
by Texas Homesteader
A few weeks ago I started playing with recipes for making my own healthier fudgesicles. I used RancherMan as a very willing guinea pig for several batches until I perfected it.
Taste-Testing Homemade Fudgesicles? RancherMan’s got a tough job, huh? Poor guy!
I wanted to make my own fudgesicles for several reasons: They’re healthier, filled with probiotics, produce less landfill trash, are much less expensive. Plus, c’mon let’s be honest – it’s EASY!
by Texas Homesteader
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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?
