Food Dehydration Ideas

On Saturday, I helped at an Emergency Preparedness Fair with the Red Cross. The event was hosted by a local Mormon church. The information tables were provided by organizations and individuals. This is the second year and I have been both times. It's a great program. One table was an older couple who were sharing information on dehydrating foods and sprouting. He had made this huge dehydrator that looked like a cupboard and was nearly as tall as me. I stopped and talked to the woman when I noticed her collection of dehydrated foods. She had glass jars of all sorts of things from cheeses to vegetables to fruits to other stuff. She told me that she dried everthing. Her husband told us about her jar of vegetables that they used for soup. When items came out of the garden they went into the dehydrator and then were mixed in a gallon jar to be turned into soup and it was the best soup ever. I believe him but I was just stunned by the cheeses and the soup starters. She told me that when she has left overs such as split pea soup - she dehydrates on sheets of plastic (like you would fruit leather). She reconstitutes it later. What an amazing idea because dried foods take up less space and are so versitile. Lately I've been loving my dried oranges in my tea. I drink my first cup and then keep refilling with cool water so I can enjoy those oranges all day. Last night, I started a batch of tomatoes in the dehydrator. The woman told my husband that she dries her tomatoes and then grinds them into a powder with seasonings. When she wants spaghetti sauce she mixes the powder with water and voila - she has sauce. I can see so much potential. Ground tomato with a little water easily becomes tomato paste. More water and some chucks becomes canned tomatoes. I have 25 pounds of romas and this one batch barely touched the surface. I will can some but I can't wait to see what I can do with the dried tomatoes. I picture quick soups and sauces in our future.

Lemon Flatbread and Pizza

I have some beautiful lemons from a friend and the first recipe I thought of was lemon flatbread. I saw the recipe in a magazine and thought I had saved it. Luckily I found it online. The end result was crispy crackery sour salty goodness. I had even cut the amount of salt and it was still overpowering in a junk food sort of way. My yeast was dying so the bread didn't raise as nicely but I wasn't about to complain.
I know it doesn't sound like an "Ohh" "Ahh" sort of recipe but I liked it. I liked it even better when I turned the crust into pizza last night. I had better yeast so the result was less cracker like. I used wheat flour both times - mixing oat flour the first time and a little white flour the second time (both times just to use up the scraps of flour we had around). I made two pizzas - one with organic pizza sauce, grilled onions and peppers, pepperoni and cheese. The second I made a pesto sort of sauce out of pickled green tomatoes, pumpkin seeds and a little garlic. That pizza had sauce and cheese. I did leave a little cheese off the last 1/3 of each pizza so my husband could have some. The end result was wonderful pizza. They were different but so tasty. That was the last of our pickled tomatoes (sadly, no one really liked them when I first made them but since we discovered they are great on pasta, and now pizza, we've gone through them rather quickly) but hopefully, we'll have lots of tomatoes this fall to make more.
On to the recipe - this is on myrecipe.com
I made them with whole white wheat mixed with less than 1 cup of other flours. For the lemon flatbread, I left off salting the bread just before baking. I did notice that it too less time for my flatbread to cook so watch the timing. I think they took only about 15 minutes so start checking at 10 minutes.

Lemon Flatbread
1 tablespoon active dry yeast
1/3 cup olive oil, plus more for bowl and pans
4 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
3 tablespoons salt, divided (see Notes)
3 lemons
In the bowl of a stand mixer, dissolve yeast in 1 3/4 cups warm water (90° to 105°). Let sit until foamy, about 5 minutes. Attach dough hook and, with mixer on low, add olive oil, flour, and 4 tsp. salt. Mix until dough is smooth, about 2 minutes. (It will still be fairly sticky and won't pull away from the inside of bowl.) Using a spatula or oiled hands, put dough in a large, oiled bowl, cover with a clean towel or plastic wrap, and let sit until doubled in bulk, 1 1/2 to 2 hours. Meanwhile, slice lemons as thinly as possible. Discard any seeds. Put lemons and 1 tbsp. salt in a bowl. Let sit at room temperature at least 1 hour and up to 1 day. Preheat oven to 425°. Lightly oil two 10- by 15-in. baking sheets. Punch down dough, divide in half, and put each half on a baking sheet. Flatten dough as much as possible, pushing gently from the center out. (Dough will pull back toward the center; don't worry if it doesn't stay in place.) Let rest 10 minutes and then flatten again, pushing the edges and corners down to help them stay put (if it pulls back a bit, that's okay, but you want to make the dough as thin and flat as possible). Lift lemon slices out of their juices and lay them evenly over the dough, pressing them into dough as much as possible. Sprinkle dough with remaining 2 tsp. salt. Bake until brown and crispy, about 25 minutes. While bread is still warm, cut each sheet into 15 pieces. Cool on wire racks.

Tomato Soup

Tomato Soup has always puzzled me - I love it in restaurants but I hate it at home. I got to thinking about the types of tomato soup that I would get in restaurants and realized it's not the same. The soup I get out is a thin broth with chunks of tomato and a variety of other things, usually pasta. Where the home (canned) version is a thick pasty cream of tomato soup. I decided that tomato soup would be a good use of the ever-ripening pile of tomatoes on my counter. I did a quick search and could not find a recipe that I liked. I made mental notes and headed for the kitchen. What I created, not only satisfied my soup craving, but was so good my son ate several bowls (my tomato hating son). I tried to keep exact measurements but wasn't so successful with the tomatoes. I use cherry tomatoes and cut them in half.

Tomato Soup
1/2 onion, minced
3 stalks celery, thinly sliced
2 tb minced garlic
oil
4 cups chicken broth
4-6 cups chopped tomatoes
2-3 teas. Basil
Cover the bottom of your dutch oven or pot with a thin layer of oil. Saute the minced onion until somewhat translucent. Add the celery and garlic. Saute until tender or you get bored. Add chicken broth. Stir to bring up the bits that may have gotten stuck at the bottom. Add tomatoes and basil. Let come to a boil, then reduce to medium low to simmer. Add water as necessary. Cook until the flavor of the tomatoes have over-powered the flavor of the chicken broth (about 20 minutes). Serve hot.

Fried Green Tomatoes

One dish my husband looks forward to every fall is fried green tomatoes. I was able to get some green tomatoes from a local organic farm. I paid more than I would have normally ($1 a pound) but I felt this was a special request and a gift for my husband.
Making fried green tomatoes is really easy and I have finally found a breading that everyone loved. The only thing about the frying is that I use little oil and it gets dirty so after every 3-4 batches I would have to clean out the pan. I don't have a good solution but it didn't really detract from the process. I set up a funnel with a coffee filter in a jar to dump the oil into and used a paper towel to quickly wipe away the crumbs left behind.
I don't have measurements because this is not really a measurement sort of recipe - it's more a technique.

Fried Green Tomatoes
Large, firm green tomatoes (at least the size of a tennis ball)
Flour
Milk
Eggs
Cornmeal
Seasoning Salt (I used New Orleans Seasoning)

Slice the tomatoes into 1/2 inch slices, try to keep them uniform but it's okay if there is some variation. Set out four bowls. Pour milk in the first bowl. Place 3/4 cup flour in the second and add seasoning, mix with a fork. Add 2 eggs to the third bowl and beat until combined. In the last bowl put about 3/4 cup of corn meal.
Take a deep skillet and add about 1/2 inch of oil. Let heat up while prepping the tomatoes.
Dip the tomato in the milk. Let drip until not dripping anymore. Cover with flour. Shake of excess. Dip in egg - make sure the entire surface gets egg on it and stays. Let excess drip off. Dip in cornmeal.
Set tomato in oil and let fry until golden. Flip and fry until golden. Let tomato drain on a baking rack layed over a baking sheet.
Serve with gravy or ranch dressing and enjoy.

Beef Stew

One thing I have missed has been beef stew. Our family has traditionally made stew with pre-packaged mix but it has wheat in it. Tonight I made a stew that was so simple and so good, I can't imagine ever using a package again.

1 package stew meat (I think the package I used was just over a pound)
1 sweet onion, chopped
2 pounds baby carrots
5-6 celery stalks, chopped
8 medium potatoes, cubed
1 quart canned tomatoes (I can my own and this particular jar had zucchini with it)
Beef Bouillion
Oil

Heat oil in large pot. Brown stew meat in batches to get them good and browned. Add onions and fry for a few minutes until the onions begin to brown. Add tomatoes and about 5 quarts water. Add vegetables. Add bouillion to taste (I added about 1/2 cup for all that water). The broth should just be a little salty and beefy without being overpowering. Bring to a boil on high, turn down to medium and let cook for a couple hours. The longer it cooks the better the flavor. Keep an eye on the liquid and don't let it boil down below the top of the meat and veggies.