What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

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.

When I’m preserving food, 99.9% of the time, freeze drying is my choice. There is nothing wrong with dehydrating foods to preserve them. I did it for many years but now that I have a freeze dryer, that’s my preferred method. Most foods . . and I’m trying to think of exceptions but can’t though...

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

Potatoes are one of the things I had not yet tried to freeze dry but it seems that many people were doing them this year. I kept seeing blog posts and Facebook posts about freeze dried potatoes so I figured . . why not? We got those 10 pound bags of potatoes for $2 each...

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

We bought 7 three pound bags of Vidalia onions and I had a 5 pound bag of them here already so yesterday I used the 7 bags we bought on Tuesday and almost the whole 5 pound bag I had here to get onions ready for the freeze dryer. I cut the ends off, cut...

The post 25 Pounds of Onions appeared first on Patchwork Times by Judy Laquidara.

Yesterday while we were in town, we ended up over by the store that has almost daily specials so we stopped to see what was on sale. They had Vidalia onions – 3 pounds for $1. Today I’ll be chopping 21 pounds of Vidalia onions. I’ll freeze them til the current load is done in...

The post Chopping Onions appeared first on Patchwork Times by Judy Laquidara.

Folks! I hate feeling like I have to explain that Load #2 is ready to go into the freeze dryer. I sat, with my feet propped up and chopped the celery. Vince brought the trays out to the freezer. Vince will bring the trays down to the freeze dryer. I stood maybe 10 minutes and...

The post Celery #1 Load is Done appeared first on Patchwork Times by Judy Laquidara.

A question was asked in the comments yesterday about pre-freezing foods for the freeze dryer. There are several reasons I do it and probably additional reasons that others do it. The freeze dryer freezes food at a much lower temp than our home freezers. According to Harvest Right, foods are frozen at -20 to -50...

The post Pre-Freezing Food for the Freeze Dryer appeared first on Patchwork Times by Judy Laquidara.

Several years ago Vince used an old pressure canner and made it into a vacuum chamber. I prefer vacuum sealing freeze dried food in jars and never expected to use larger than a quart jar. We have plenty of half gallon jars and, considering that I can use one lid with one half gallon jar,...

The post Vacuum Sealing Half Gallon Jars appeared first on Patchwork Times by Judy Laquidara.

Several people have asked if we REALLY eat that much okra. I think it looks like a lot to those who don’t try to store food from one season to the next but here’s how I look at it. With 52 weeks in a year, by the time the okra for this year stops producing,...

The post How Much is Enough? appeared first on Patchwork Times by Judy Laquidara.

Last night the tomatoes and okra were done so I put them in jars and vacuum sealed them. I’ve freeze dried tomatoes along with jalapeno, onions and cilantro to make pico but I don’t think I’ve ever freeze dried tomatoes by themselves. These are all out of my garden (except some of the okra came...

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

The freeze dryer would have finished about 3 a.m. so I added another 5 hours to it last night before going to bed. I was able to stop it before 8 and get the food in jars, vacuum sealed, drain the oil, add fresh oil for the next load. When I first got the freeze...

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