Category: Dehydrating

Gearing Up to Preserve

On By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Canning, Column, Dehydrating, Dry storage, Fermenting, Freezing, Refrigerating, TopicLeave a comment

My top tip for stress-free preserving is to gear up before you dig in. Learn more at TwiceasTasty.com.
My fridge is currently full of macerating rhubarb and recently picked homegrown strawberries, ready to be turned today into jams and shrubs. I’m not the only one gearing up to preserve, as I share this week in my Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon. A local farmer told me last week that her crew has made 50 pounds of Rhubarb Kimchi, building on my recipe in The Complete Guide to Pickling. Tangy Radish Rounds and Spring Asparagus Pickles are also currently popular recipes from the book.

I’ll eventually be turning rhubarb into kimchi and fermented pickles, but today’s projects are on the sweeter side. Our strawberry crop has hit its peak, so I’ll be developing some jam recipes to share down the road, featuring the sweet fruit and pairing it with rhubarb. I’ll also be canning up one of my seasonal favorites: Rhubarb–Earl Grey Jam.
Learn how to gear up for preserving

Prepare to Dehydrate

On By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Dehydrating, Topic, Workshops1 Comment

Dehydration is simple and handy in the kitchen and on adventures. Learn more at TwiceasTasty.com.
As you prepare to preserve your harvest, it’s easy to overlook a simple and effective technique: dehydration. The process provides nutritional, flavor, and storage benefits and both preserves and enhances a surprising range of foods. Dried foods are handy not just in your kitchen but also in your child’s lunchbox, the stem bag on your bike, the front pouch on your daypack, and your ski jacket pocket.

Like most preservation techniques, dehydrating has pros and cons. On the upside, dehydrating intensifies the flavor of food, saves space, and needs little hands-on time. On the downside, food that isn’t fully dried or properly stored can mold. And although you can dehydrate in open air, you’ll get the best control over moisture, heat, and other factors is you use a dehydrator.
Learn to dehydrate and make Marinated Dried Tomatoes

Prepare to Preserve

On By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Canning, Dehydrating, Dry storage, Fermenting, Freezing, Refrigerating, Topic, WorkshopsLeave a comment

Whatever your type of produce, storage space, or free time, you can save your harvest. Learn more at TwiceasTasty.com.
How’s your garden growing? If it’s anything like mine, you’ve moved beyond planting to weeding and harvesting—and harvesting, and harvesting. With so much food coming ripe so quickly, it’s time to dig out the canning kettle, dehydrator, crocks, and other preservation tools that will let you enjoy homegrown (or farm fresh from a CSA) produce the rest of the year.

Later this month, I’ll be teaching a free online workshop through Free the Seeds that focuses on preparing to preserve your harvest. It’s a big topic, with far more information than I can share in one session, so I’ll be expanding on that topic all month here at Twice as Tasty. Be sure to join me online July 15 so that I can answer your questions directly (sign up for the Free the Seeds mailing list to receive a registration email), and then check back here for additional tips, tools, and recipes that save your harvest. You’ll also find pages of information on basic tools and techniques here.
Read more about preparing to preserve

Gifting Food

On By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Baking, Canning, Dehydrating, Freezing, Refrigerating, Topic3 Comments

With a little thought, you can make your food gifts the highlight of someone’s holiday season—and of yours. Learn more at TwiceasTasty.com.
With the holiday season on your doorstep, you’re likely planning meals and buying and making gifts. If you’re like me, you’re preparing to give the gift of food. It may not sound as sexy as an Apple AirPod or gravity blanket, but when you’ve taken the time to make it, package it, and set it aside with a specific person in mind, it carries far more love.

Still, giving and receiving food has its challenges. I’m not talking about the effort you put into preparing it, which you’ve likely already planned into your schedule and budget. I’m talking about ensuring your hard work will truly be appreciated by the receiver—and about how you, when you’re the receiver, can value what’s been created for you. With a little thought, you can make your food gifts the highlight of someone’s holiday season—and of yours.
Read more about gifting food

Quick Saves

On By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Canning, Dehydrating, Dry storage, Freezing, TopicLeave a comment

This primer brings together ways I quickly save the last rounds of in-season veg. Read more about quick-save vegetables. Learn more at TwiceasTasty.com.
As the growing season winds down, I get plenty of questions about what to do with the last weeks of homegrown harvests and the last crops from farmer’s markets. By now, you’ve likely eaten your fill of your favorite fresh dishes and processed your favorite canned and frozen goods. If you’re like me, you’re torn between wanting to be done with the labor of weeding and harvesting and wanting to capture those last few tomatoes, those last few broccoli stalks, to enjoy after snowfall.

I’ve already shared many of my favorite ways to save excess and end-of-season produce. This month, I’ll continue to share some of my favorite fall canning recipes. But this week, I wanted to bring together in one post some of the ways I quickly save the last rounds of in-season veg.
Read more about quickly saving vegetables

Summer Vegetables

On By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Canning, Dehydrating, Fermenting, Freezing, Grilling, Topic, WorkshopsLeave a comment

Summer means filling bellies not just with the freshest produce possible but also with preserved vegetables the rest of the year. Learn more at TwiceasTasty.com.
If your garden isn’t in full swing yet, it’s about to be. Even here in Montana, with our long winters and short growing season, spring produce is beginning to wind down: Lettuces and spinach will soon be bolting, the asparagus crop has tapered off, and the strawberry bed has been picked nearly clean. In their place, summer produce is ready to burst forth, launching itself into the annual race to grow faster than I can harvest and process.

If you’ve been following along on Instagram, you’ve seen how I deal with spring’s vegetable bounty: #dailysalad. But with a large garden, summer vegetables need a different approach. The next few weeks are not just about filling bellies with the freshest produce possible but also about preserving those vegetables so that they can fill bellies the rest of the year. Here’s how I’ll be spending the next few weeks.
Read more about enjoying summer vegetables year-round

Three Cups of Tea

On By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Dehydrating, Topic, Using1 Comment

For me, traveling revived the family tradition of daily cups of tea. Learn to make Moroccan-Inspired Mint Tea and British and Russian Black Tea. Get tea recipes at TwiceasTasty.com.
I grew up in a family of tea drinkers: hot tea for breakfast, iced tea in summer, even decaf tea in evenings. Although my mom might hesitate over a choice of English Breakfast or Earl Grey, both she and my grandmother gravitated toward black teas, unsweetened and unadorned.

As soon as I was deemed old enough to drink hot, caffeinated beverages, I saw it as my duty, as a mildly rebellious teenager, to develop a coffee addiction. But once my independence was established, I added tea to the mix. Traveling only expanded my repertoire. In Great Britain and Russia, I continued the family tradition of daily mugs of black tea, learning to love a bit of sweet, creaminess in some cups. Morocco brought another twist: hot green tea to fight the ambient heat and seal a business deal or friendship, with so much mint and sugar it resembles a breath mint.
Learn to make Moroccan-Inspired Mint Tea and British and Russian Black Tea

Choosing and Storing Herbs

On By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Dehydrating, Topic, UsingLeave a comment

Food has always dominated my travels, and home re-creations almost always start with herbs. Read more about choosing and storing herbs.
Spring is finally in the air, and I am on the road. In recent weeks, I’ve cleaned up the garden beds; watched crocus, ipheion, scilla, and daffodil blooms open wider by the hour; and found the first perennial herbs like mint, oregano, sorrel, and chives poking through the ground. But it’s also one of my favorite seasons to travel—with Twice as Tasty workshops, to visit family and friends, and to explore new places.

Food has always dominated my travels, first as a vegetarian struggling to find things to eat in a newly reunified Germany and later when discovering new flavors and spices in Africa and Asia and even unknown fruits and vegetables in the South Pacific. Although I still dream of the more exotic tastes, the dishes I bring home put that international spin on food I can grow or easily find in my climate. It almost always starts with herbs.
Read more about choosing and storing herbs

Fruits of Summer

On By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Canning, Dehydrating, Event, Freezing, TopicLeave a comment

June has me craving garden sweets. Rhubarb has been gracing my table for weeks; now strawberries are reddening to join it. In warmer areas, you’re probably anticipating blackberries, blueberries, and tart cherries before the month is out. As we roll into July, raspberries, apricots, and early plums will all start to appear. It’s hard to resist summer’s sweet bounty.

It’s also hard to overcome the desire for fruit out of season. Although American grocery stores stock nearly every vegetable imaginable all year, some fruits can be harder to come by outside their harvest window. Those that do appear year-round, or close to it, lack that fresh summer flavor that makes them so appealing. How they are grown is also of concern; more than half of the Dirty Dozen list (foods with the worst pesticide residue based on USDA and FDA data) is fruit. These are all good reasons to grow—and save—fruit yourself.
Read more about preserving the fruits of summer

Freezer and Storage Soups

On By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Dehydrating, Dry storage, Freezing, Topic, UsingLeave a comment

One of my off-season joys is making an easy meal that tastes as though it took time and effort to create. Soup is among the easiest—and I’m not talking poured out of a can.

Sure, there can be a lot of time-consuming dicing and mincing for freshly made soup. By planning ahead, I eliminate nearly all of that effort at mealtime. I also ensure the produce carries all the flavor my garden can generate; with a little extra effort at harvest time, there’s no need to buy a mealy tomato or flavorless broccoli.

This week, I offer you two soup recipes that I can make on a moment’s notice because their ingredients are staples in my house in winter. They’re staples because during harvest, I dry-store potatoes, dry-store or freeze onions and garlic, dehydrate smoked chilies and herbs, and freeze cherry tomatoes, broccoli, and Vegetable Stock. Hopefully this list of links and the recipes that follow will inspire you to take similar steps as you grow or buy local food in the next few months.
Learn to make Spanish Potato–Garlic Soup and Italian Broccoli–Pasta Soup