I love dehydrated tomatoes. They put quite a splash into a lot of dishes, are easy to preserve, easy to store, and easy to use. I canned (in glass) some tomatoes, but have only used the dehydrated. I used Amish Paste tomatoes for dehydrating, and they are divine.
What do you mean by open kettle? Next up on my list of how-to as a prepper is the pressure canner, so that not everything I can has either vinegar, sugar, or both. I'm so sick of pickles already.
Open kettle us a water bath canner. High acid foods like tomatoes don't require a pressure cooker, boiling temperature is enough! Mom always added a teaspoon of lemon juice to make sure it was acidic enough. She never had one spoil, and she canned thousands!
I'd buy the pressure canner, because it can always be used for an open kettle canner too. I have half a dozen pressure canners, and cook food in them weekly. So get several sizes....
👍💙🙏📖🙏💗🤔🤠🎯
OK thanks for that advice. Every year I learn new stuff. I also don't trust freezing food, although I do have a generator. I find that, even frozen, foods don't last long, only a month or two, especially anything that has been cooked, so it's not a great prepper technique. I love your posts on prepping! I think I've learned more from you than from anyone else.
I'm glad I've been helpful! It's the hope that I can help people like you, that keeps me posting.
Keeping air out of the freezer bag will help keep the food longer. I have a friend that double wraps everything...vacuum packing dehydrated food is easier.
👍💙🙏📖🙏💗😁🤔
What are good veggies to dehydrate? I like tomatoes and shiitake, but most other veggies I've tried don't taste all that good months later. I don't have a vacuum packer, which could be why. I don't know what that is.
They work best in stew or another slow cooked pot food (chili, spaghetti sauce etc.); where they can be rehydrated thourghly.
You must blanch the vegetables before drying, or enzyme action will continue to toughen them post processing. If you use frozen vegetables from the store, they have been blanched in boiling water already! This is a cheat I use when I find a real deal on frozen vegetables. Otherwise it's like chewing leather, including the taste. Blanching is required for freezing too!
Here's a batch of mixed frozen vegetables I found a case lot deal on. They will be vacuumed from here, and go into long term storage. I like the jars, because I can use some out of the jar, and re-vacuum the remaining food; with no loss.
The vacuum tool I bought off of eBay, and it fits over a jar with a lid only. A tube connects the assembly to a vacuum pump. When the pump removes the air, the lid seals down when the pump is removed. I use a refrigeration type pump, but they have kitchen models; and one Lady, Uses a hand pump designed to bleed brakes. How You get the vacuum is not critical. The kitchen style pulls 14 inches of mercury, mine pulls over 28; while the hand unit pulls about 22. The better the vacuum, the longer it will store safely.
👍💙🙏📖🙏💗🤠🤔👌
Excellent info! Thank you!!! So you just put the whole veggies in your dehydrator? I didn't blanch anything, and most of it is inedible. There must be some types of veggies I don't have to blanch though. I can't, for instance, blanch tomato slices. Do you blanch the cherry tomatoes? I have so many questions now!!!
Hey, hivegarden community is adding a prize for best prepper advice to their monthly garden journal contest. I'd love to see you posting for that one. Should I tag you when the contest comes out, on the first of every month, give or take a day? We need more preppers posting with us, if you ask me.
Tomatoes are a fruit, not a vegetable, so they don't need blanching. Short immersion in boiling water (blanching) stops the enzymes on the vegetables, so they don't continue to process the food. Corn and beans are the worst.
https://www.thespruceeats.com/blanching-vegetables-before-freezing-1327660
https://extension.umn.edu/preserving-and-preparing/vegetable-blanching-directions-and-times-home-freezer-storage
Here's a couple of links on blanching...pay attention to the rapid cooling after the boiling water! It says that steam can be used for blanching, I hadn't considered that; so I learned some blanching information today myself.
I agree on the need for prepping posts, knowledge is survival. Let me know, but it's hard to do a good post on 'schedule'; but I'll make the attempt!
👍💙🙏📖🙏💗🤠