Welcome to Freeze Dried Friday on SurvivalBlog! We’ve been making so many things in the Harvest Right Freeze Dryer that we want to share some of them with you. If you have something wonderful you’ve prepared in your freeze dryer that you would like to share with SurvivalBlog readers, take a photo of it and send it in along with a description. We might just feature you here! The pride and joy of the week is our batch of genovese basil, but first:
Odds and Ends
it’s been a slow week this time around for freeze drying. We only ran five batches in total. One of the joys of the prepper mantra of multiple streams of income is that every once in a while, one of those income streams becomes like a dragon. Problems engulf and consume you. I tease my wife that I am a firefighter at home too— putting out the biggest fire, slathering grease on the loudest squeak— whatever it takes. It’s a good feeling when things get back to normal.
Eggs
Mrs Latimer informed me early in the week that it was time for another batch of eggs. Eight dozen at a time makes four quarts. The chickens are doing well now and it seems I have to run a batch nearly every week. I think it’s time to start selling the eggs though. If I lost all my chickens, it would be quite some time before I ran out of eggs.
Vegetables
We managed to put away some extra vegetables this week as well— Two quarts of Broccoli and two quarts of peas. I’d love to tell you that those peas came from my garden, but I can’t. It’s a Costco special of frozen peas. They also have some excellent corn if you visit there, but we prefer our own which is starting to come off now. The Broccoli is also from Costco as it’s too warm for it right now in the garden.
Brown Rice
Rice is always an easy side dish, but brown rice usually takes longer to cook. We like to keep some freeze dried brown rice on hand for those times when you nearly have to eat on the go. You can pour a little bit of the FD rice in a jar, add some FD chicken and maybe a few of those peas and have a complete tasty meal in under five minutes. This week, Mrs Latimer made a gallon of brown rice so now we have 4 quart jars of it.
Genovese Basil
The genovese basil was harvested this week so that was the last batch we ran. A gallon of fresh green leaves make one quart of FD herbs when crushed. It’s sad to see them compress that much, but man do they smell good!
That’s it for this week. I’m hoping that some of you will send in pictures of your foods that you have freeze dried.
We don’t have a freeze drier, but I dehydrated moringa leaves this week. After processing them in the Vitamix, I have about half a quart of powder to add to smoothies. (Moringa leaves are highly nutritious, and are being used to combat child malnutrition in 3rd world countries.)
you can dehydrate many greens and tomatoes (slice and pat dry and sprinkle salt on) and fruits by simply laying them out on paper towel or kitchen towel on a cookie sheet, putting it in the back seat of your car on a hot day and waiting overnight.
Hugh what’s your view on freeze drying garden seeds for long term storage?
Lately I have been running several batches of eggs through the FD. They do really well when reconstituted. I usually run about six dozen a batch. Of everything I run it has by far the longest drying time. Usually takes about 24 hr on the dry cycle. The last batch I had I had to pull the trays and put them in the freezer while I defrosted with a hair dryer and spatula. Seems like once the walls of the chamber become completley covered with thick ice it can no longer pull moisture out of the food. Do you have any of the same issues with eggs or is it just me? Thanks
@Brent,
I had the exact same issue until I started filtering oil after every cycle. Using fresh (or filtered) oil on every cycle has a dramatic performance increase on the operation of the FD.
I am filtering after every batch as well. I am using the filter harvest right provided. I seems to work fairly well. Like you said filtering your oil makes a huge difference. When I bought my FD harvest right recommended that you drain a teaspoon of oil in between batches and change it it completely every eight to ten batches. Now with the new recommendations of filtering between every batch I have noticed a house difference. I am certain the old way is the reason I had a real seal failure on my first pump. I am interested to know what are you using to filter your oil? Also thanks for doing the freeze dry Friday