I let the freeze dryer sit empty overnight for a change. The boys and I had to go to town in the morning to get grocery orders which wasn't too bad. It has become easier to go to town now with the curbside pickup, especially when I don't have to pile the kids in and out of the car. Once we got home and unloaded the car I got the next load of trays ready for batch 22.
The first tray was the easiest since I had it in the freezer overnight with a load of the pumpkin cookies.
The next tray was just as easy. The raw pumpkin from the prior batch had a few spots that were not quite fully dried so after letting it sit out I pieced it back together in the tray and slid it into the rack.
A couple nights ago I made pumpkin sauce with ground beef pasta and did not use all the ground beef. I laid out the pasta on most of the tray and then spread out the rest of the ground beef.
The 3rd dish of pumpkin pie filling had been sitting out on the freezer staying cool. This time I cut it into much smaller more bite sized pieces. It took up a lot more space than the first tray of it but I have more pieces which means more space between.
I filled the rest of the tray with avocados. I had bought 3 of them but the prior batch took so long that they had started get too old. I had to hack out the bad spots so they did not end up looking quite as good as the prior ones but at least they saved.
I tried the bacon bits and they did okay. There is just too much grease and oil left in them to make them seem like they would be shelf stable. I have them stored in the fridge to ensure they stay good. Due to this I picked up a ham steak to try since I know there is a lot less fat in the it. I cut the steak up into nice sized cubes after removing any of the excess fat.
I had half a tray to fill still and I remembered I wanted to try ginger. We have bags of non-candied ginger pieces so I pulled out a handful and broke the pieces down into smaller ones. The ginger could be outstanding and I am anxious to see how it comes out. I would love it if it broke the stringy texture and made it more melt in the mouth. The fill out the last bit I cut up a banana.
For the afternoon and evening I got a fire going in the pit. We'd built up a bit of a stack of burnables so I let the boys shovel it into the fire which they did with gusto. After 5:00 pm I drove a couple miles south to meet the Azure delivery truck for our co-op order.
Batch 22 is just about done this morning and I have the next run already laid out. We got bags of frozen veggies from Azure that will be going in. Peas, corn, and green beans.
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Gab
When you put a variety of foods in at once, especially on the same tray, do they ever pick up odors from each other?
So far I have not noticed any. I have read of others having that happen, but I am probably drying items that have a strong enough scent of their own that they don't absorb others.
Good to know!
Still wondering how the pumpkin cookies tasted...
The cookies came out great. The freeze drying just turned them hard and they taste a slight bit different than fresh cookies but it is hard to put words to it. I think there is less pumpkin taste after the drying, the raisins, nuts, and chocolate chip flavors are more forward.