Little Susie Homemaker

Tag: Freeze Drying

  • Strawberries

    (This post contains affiliate links which means if you purchase from my link, I will make a few cents)

    It’s strawberry season here in the PNW. I’m very thankful for a u-pick farm nearby that has a variety of things I can pick. While they aren’t certified organic, they practice clean farming practices which we appreciate. 

    I picked about 8ish pounds and brought them home, cleaned them up, sorted them and got to thinking about all that I going to do with them. 

    First up, EAT them! Strawberries are do delicious. Growing up, I wouldn’t touch them! I’m so glad my tastebuds changed in adulthood, and I tried them again. 

    I sorted the berries and separated the ones that are the ripest. (Some are almost purple, they’re so dark red!!) We’ll eat those tonight or tomorrow morning and whatever is left of those will go into jam. 

    Next up, make jam! 😛 I use Pomona Pectin which is a no-sugar/low-sugar pectin and uses calcium to activate the pectin rather than sugar. I tend to use a bit of honey for just a hint of sweetness (½ cup for the whole batch of jam). 

    Mashed Berries
    Adding honey w/pectin
    Bringing to a boil
    Water Bath

    I love this set of canning tools (see picture below) which helps when it comes to not burning fingers on boiling hot items!! You’ll also need canning jars. You can buy brand new with lids & rings. Or you can buy the jars, rings and lids all separate.

    Every time I can, I LOVE that ping of the jar sealing when it comes out of the water bath. I took a video and you can hear the ping, but it’s more of a ‘pong’ because the phone must have been a bit too close. LOL

    Third way to use them, freeze dry them. As I’ve previously posted, we have a Harvest Right freeze-dryer which I use to make shelf-stable, dried foods that are ultra-lightweight for backpacking. Freeze dried strawberries are delicious. They work great to break up and throw into oatmeal but are also great to eat by themselves as a snack. I love having freeze dried fruit on hand. 

    (I store a lot of my freeze-dried food in mason jars as I’m not doing this for long-term storage. There’s less waste with not throwing out a mylar bag every time I need to repackage something to take backpacking. I love these half-gallon mason jars! I use these jar sealers that I use with our Foodsaver accessory vacuum sealer)

    Lastly, I’ll freeze some that we can use in smoothies or other things throughout the winter. (Nothing like a taste of summer in the cold of winter.) Last year, we bought a stand-up deep freeze that we keep in the garage. I have loved having fruits, vegetables and meat in the freeze to ‘shop’ from when it’s time to think about what to make for meals. I have one bag of raspberries left from last year and about a half bag of diced apples from last season. 

    As it is still early in strawberry season, I’m sure I’ll go out to the u-pick farm at least once more. (The farm has about 7 varieties of strawberries and only the first two were ripe when I went today.) 

    Happy Strawberry season!

  • Reducing food waste – Freeze Drying

    *some links below may be affiliate links which means if the item is purchased through the link, I may make a small commission

    Have you ever seen those foods/meals you can buy that are supposed to last up to 25 years? Those are freeze dried meals!

    Why would you want a freeze dried (FD) meal? Do they even taste good?

    Well, let me tell you!

    First the why – preppers prep, gardeners preserve (tired of canning or ran out of freezer space) or backpackers want to eat in the back country without needing a mule to carry the cooler.

    My husband & I fit into the 3rd option above (although I fit into a bit of all three). Ultra-light backpacking. WITH water, my pack is usually about 25 lbs. My husband’s pack is a bit more at around 28 lbs. (We have friends who do this with 45 lb. packs – no thank you!!)

    One way our packs stay light, making backpacking more enjoyable, is bringing along freeze-dried food. Freeze drying taking the water out making the food feather light.

    Two weeks after we got married is the first time I went backpacking and I fell in love with being out in the back country. Wanting to control the ingredients consumed, I knew I didn’t want to eat the store-bought FD’ed meals.

    The investigation into freeze-drying began! Buying a machine is expensive! Then I did the math. Based on what we were paying for meals at REI (breakfasts – $9-$13 each, dinners – $13-$16 each), it would take 40 nights for the 2 of us (80 nights total) for a machine to pay for itself.

    That math made sense to both of us that buying a machine was worth it. A medium Harvest Right Medium Freeze Dryer was purchased during the Christmas sale at the end of 2022. Harvest Right changed the configuration shortly after I bought ours and the medium now has 4 trays, not 3 like what I have.

    ***Harvest Right will be having their May Mega Sale May 1-21st, 2024 and machines will be up to $500 off!!! If you’re in the market, take advantage. Black Friday is their only other sale of the year!!

    After the first season of having the machine, it is half paid off by backpacking a total 35 nights between the two of us. In addition to full meals, there are individual ingredients and snacks available not include in that total. I consider this a big win!!

    FD’ing our leftovers allows for extremely lightweight food to pack. We take a Jetboil to boil water which we then pour into either a mylar bag or a titanium cup to rehydrate the meal.

    By making and taking own meals, we know what to expect and we know exactly what went into these meals. There is also a much bigger variety of meals than what are sold in the stores.

    To answer the second question, YES, they taste good!!! There have been a couple of things that we didn’t care for (Asian flavors – I think it’s the soy sauce that I don’t like). The most surprisingly delicious meal was fish tacos. We tried it on a whim and were VERY surprised at how delicious it was when rehydrated!!!

    The other two reasons listed above (prepping and gardening) have been a side benefit of having a freeze dryer. Having grown up out in the country, my desire to be prepared has not left me in spite of city and suburban living. (umm, multi-day power outage???) And now that I’ve started a garden, I like having the option of FD’ing some of the harvest! (FD’ed blueberries anyone!?!?!)

    There was more than one evening this past winter that I didn’t want to go to the store. Instead, I shopped the pantry and used FD’ed ingredients (carrots, celery, onion, chicken and chicken broth) into a delicious soup.

    You’ll notice in the picture above that most of my FD’ed stuff is stored in mason jars. I like being able to quickly see what and how much I have. And we’re also not wasting other materials if we have to repack something to fit better before we head out backpacking.

    I use the “accessory” button on our Foodsaver machine along with these mason jar vacuum sealer tops to seal the jars. The thing with FD food is to keep moisture away until time to use it. It slowly rehydrates from the humidity in the air and get soft and squishy and will eventually go bad.

    How does this reduce food waste you ask? It gives another option of what to do with leftovers to ensure they get eaten and not thrown out. It also is a wonderful tool to have when finding amazing deals on food (like the apple grower in Wenatchee that sells their Honeycrisp apples in the off season for $1/lb or less!!)

    It was an investment worth making for us. Freeze drying for the win!!!! 🙂 Hooray for HarvestRight!

    For more ideas on how to reduce food waste, you can read more in my previous post about Cleaning out the Fridge.