Spring Time

 I can't believe that it's the first day of Spring already!!!  Here in Michigan today is a freakish 80 degrees out side.  I'm not really complaining but I am wondering if the other shoe is going to drop. 

 A while ago I bought some Florida strawberries from the farmer's market.   They were a use it or loose it type of deal so I wanted to see what would happen if they got put into the dehydrator.  I thought that ... well actually I didn't have a clue what to expect.

This is what they looked like after several hours in the dehydrator (and my house smelled like strawberry cake for some reason).  The taste was outstanding!  Almost like a slice of candy, so sweet and delicious.  I can't wait til strawberry season and try to make more of these.

Dry Beans

     Today I decided that I wanted to try something new, something that I think can only help us as a family.  We (I) are going to learn how to cook with dried beans.  It doesn't probably seem like a Earth shattering decision but as stupid as it may seem I have never cooked beans that didn't start in a can (except green beans).  Molly has been home sick the last two days and we have been watching Doomsday Preppers from NatGeo.  It has become an addiction.  The first thing we realized is that while we talk about prepping we aren't really doing anything and that has to stop.  So today while grocery shopping we made sure to get extra gallons of water, a small first aid kit and shelf stable dried beans.  If you have any tips or great recipes I would love to hear them :)  On the table is pinto, light red kidney, small red beans, and adzuki beans.  The ones in the clear containers are from a local source that will also be used for planting this weekend.

DIY Fruit Leather

 Molly got a new issue of Food Network magazine this weekend.  In it was how to make your own fruit roll ups.  The kids decided that we NEEDED to do that!  We were headed to the farmer's market anyway so we grabbed some extra fruit while we were there.  I read through the Food Network recipe and realized that they used a lot of white sugar, not gonna' happen in my house.  The kids helped me pull out every book that might reference fruit leather and we sort of just did our own thing.  We had a pass/fail thing all at one time so we learned a lot in just one try. 
 We started with three pints of fresh raspberries rinsed off and put into a large pot.  Then we added about half a cup of raw honey, but we just eyeballed that.  Mush it up (this is the kids favorite part).  Cook the berry mush down until it starts to get sticky just like when you make jam. 
While it is cooking set your oven to 200 degrees and place parchment paper on some cookie sheets.  Lightly coat with oil or cooking spray (kinda important but not devastating if you forget).
Pour the sticky mess onto your covered cookie sheet in a nice even layer.  I found this bit tricky but if you have one of those off set frosting knives it is probably a lot easier. 
Bake for four hours and then start checking it as often as you think it needs it.  Like if it's super sticky forget about it for another hour or so. 
If you have two trays remember to check each one!!!  This is the mess that was left after my thinner tray burned it was a tragic mess.  Part way through I checked the bottoms of the sheets and then decided to flip over the leather for more even cooking.  That is were the oil would have been nice but it really wasn't horrible to get the parchment off just a little more time consuming. 
The slightly thicker tray was beautiful nice dark color texture was great everything.  I cut the leather into strips and Jeff wrapped them up in wax paper strips and twisted the ends like candy, very cute right?   
Jack said he loved the leather, Molly didn't like how tart it was.   Next we are going to try plums maybe that will be sweeter for her. 

Dried Apples

This past week we were gifted to grocery bags full of apples.  We got our dehydrator last summer and hadn't used it yet.  So we sliced up one bag of our apples and placed them in the dehydrator.  Just before bed Jeff played musical layers with them and put them in reverse order from were they started since the bottom ones were getting done much quicker than the top ones.  About 24 hours later the apples were done.  I"m not sure that we were the most efficient with how the vents were open but we don't have a manual and can't find one online (crazy right?) so we are winging this thing all the way!  What's in the jar is all that is left from what we started with mostly due to the kids eating them like candy, so much for stock piling supplies :)  Oh well at least they are going over well with everyone.

We must be crazy

Wow we've had some crazy stuff going on at our homestead. My sister of the heart came over two weekends in a row with my nephew so that she could learn how to can her own things. We started with simple freezer jams and moved to our favorite Dilly Beans. During the weekdays between visits I got a lot of peaches canned and some jalapeno jelly. When Nikki came back we got a ton of pickles made (a half bushel makes A LOT!! of pickles!) more freezer jams for Nikki to take home, spaghetti sauce, and we started on tomatoes for me to can. A lot of the tomatoes ended up getting frozen so that we didn't loose them it has been a rather bizarre growing season in our region this year. Oh and I also boiled and froze potatoes! It is an experiment that was born from being given about 10 pounds of potatoes after having just purchased a 5 pound bag myself.
So the run down of things done so far this year
28 pints of dill pickles
11 jars of jalapeno jelly
12 pints of dilly beans
5 quarts of tomatoes in jars
4 pints of tomatoes in jars
9 pints of spiced peaches
15 pints of peaches in syrup
9 freezer gallon bags of spaghetti sauce and a whole lot of freezer jam in two different flavors and whatever ended up in freezer bags. Whew! That was a lot! The tomatoes that were frozen are going to get thawed and put up in jars as soon as we get an extra minute. We've got to do at least one more 1/2 bushel of tomatoes for jars. Soon the pears will be in, along with apples from my favorite orchard. So much to do but so worth it all winter long.