This week has been a blur of onions, carrots and celery. So much great stuff came in at one time that there have been boxes of vegetables all over my house for two weeks. While I love to roast and freeze vegetables for use throughout the year, it takes up a lot of space and requires an additional freezer. For the last couple of years, I’ve been working on better techniques for dehydrating and recipes that really take advantage of dehydrated items.
Last year, I was less pleased with the dehydrated carrots and celery. They didn’t seem to be as tender as I wanted in the recipes. So this year I decided to partially steam them and then dehydrate to see if I could improve my results. I ran a brief test to see how they would cook up and the test went very well. The added advantage is you can dehydrate the celery leaves separately and add them to soups or dressings for some flavor without much texture.
Lastly, I want to tell you how easy and wonderful the little sungold cherry tomatoes are dehydrated. Dehydrated, these little wonders make excellent snacks or toppings for salads. They also work wonders in stews and soups. You can soak them in a bit of olive oil and herbs and add them all sorts of recipes like meatloaf or chicken cooked in tomatoes with rice, or steamed fish and vegetables on the grill. They absorb many of the juices and fat released from the base foods so you end up with a delicious rich thick broth in your finished meals.
Many forget the simple fact that dehydrating food does save space, allowing us to maximize the space inside our fridges. I love that we’re able to make our fridge look more organized because most of our food can be stored in jars and canisters.
It helps me make a lot of recipes faster as well. Concentrating the flavors and having them on-hand are two wonderful benefits.