Tag Archives: dehydrating

Our favorite articles about dehydrating and preserving food posted on TexasHomesteader.com

Preserving The Bounty: Dehydrating Celery To Reduce Food Waste

by Texas Homesteader ~ 
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I use celery from time to time when I’m cooking. But it’s always just an ingredient and never the main event in my kitchen.

So here’s what I do to make sure it’s all used up or preserved before it goes bad.

I've learned how to preserve celery so it's always available when I want to use it in a recipe. #TexasHomesteaderPhoto by: Ashley
(because heaven knows *I* can’t make a photograph of a bunch of celery look like it belongs in an art studio!)

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Preserving The Harvest: Dehydrate Jalapenos

by Texas Homesteader
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I’ve been using my solar oven pretty heavily this year and I’ve finally dehydrated all my excess garden tomatoes for the summer. 

 (again for those of you asking, I have a *Sun Oven and I love it!) 

I’ll use the dehydrated tomatoes in numerous ways. To make tomato paste for homemade pizza and to thicken my homemade blender salsa, among other ways.

This late into summer is usually so very hot and dry that the garden stops producing and I just try to keep the garden watered enough to struggle it along in hopes of getting some kind of tiny fall garden production. 

This time of year 99% of my garden is out of production. But we do have one last veggie going strong – FIERY-RED JALAPENOS!

I use my solar oven to dehydrate jalapenos from our garden. I grind them into a powder and use them to put some SIZZLE into our food. #TexasHomesteader
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Solar Cooking: Dehydrating Garden Produce

by Texas Homesteader
*Contains an affiliate link

I love my solar oven and I use it often. I love that it takes no purchased energy to run. And most of all I love that it leaves all the cooking heat outside where it belongs. 

Recently I began dehydrating overage veggies from my garden. I freeze them as well from time to time but dehydrating them looks pretty cool in my pantry. It also reduces the volume to store by quite a  bit and it works well for use in wintertime Endless Soups – my favorite application.

I decided to try to use my electric dehydrator trays to dehydrate in my solar oven – BIG MISTAKE! Although I left the solar oven’s lid unlatched so it wouldn’t get too hot inside the oven, it apparently doesn’t take very much heat at all to do this:

Did you know you could use a solar oven to dehydrate produce? Then they take no additional energy to store & take up very little space! #TexasHomesteader
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Preserving The Harvest: Jujube Fruit

by Texas Homesteader
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I recently wrote about stumbling upon an overgrown orchard at an old homestead property we obtained. The extension agent and master naturalists identified the trees as Jujube, the fruit is also known as Japanese Dates. 

I read that the fruit can be dehydrated and used in the place of raisins. This really appeals to me as I’d love to replace something I purchase with something I preserve myself. 

So I experimented with several methods of preserving this sweet fruit.

The old trees at the abandoned homestead were Jujube Fruit. I experimented with different ways to preserve the fruit - come see! #TexasHomesteader
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Harvesting, Preserving & Using Fresh Thyme

by Texas Homesteader ~ 

I’ve discovered my favorite herb to cook with is Thyme. It’s so versatile and it adds a delicious flavor to so many different dishes. And the price of growing fresh thyme in your garden is so much less than buying it – plus it’s much fresher!

Fresh thyme in metal bowl in front of wooden birdhouse. #TexasHomesteader

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