A few weeks ago I bought a used dehydrator for veggies and such. After reading through the book that came with it, I must say I am so excited to have this thing! I was initially only thinking of drying tomatoes and all kinds of herbs with it, but did you know, I can make “fruit leathers” (like Fruit Roll-Ups) too? As I read, I kept getting more excited. I can make crackers. Trail mix. Dry all my herbs with no fears of mold or mildew. My own energy bars for my 40+ mile bike rides…

This thing is going to get some serious use.

So on to Expriment In Drying #1: “Sun” Dried Tomatoes.

I have all kinds of great Roma tomatoes coming in, some larger on certain plants than others. A few plants have consistently been producing fruit that isn’t much larger than a cherry tomato – perfect for slicing in half on a salad, or for drying. So as hubby and I got dinner in the oven, I set to cleaning and slicing up several dozen tomatoes. I ran the machine for about 10 hours. If course, you do have to flip the screens, and the fruit, about halfway through to ensure even drying, which involved me getting up at 3am to fulfill this task. If I were smarter, maybe I’d pick a day I was at home and do this during normal waking hours, hmmm?

Not all of them were perfectly done though. The ones that were nice and crispy-rubbery dry I put into a bag. The others were really close to being finished but not quite – those I put in a jar with olive oil, some salt, some vinegar, and some herbs and put in the refrigerator. They should be really good in a few days in some pasta. I don’t want to keep them very long out of fear of Botulism or something awful like that.

Sun Dried Tomatoes #2

This time I sprinkled some salt, garlic powder and oregano on the tomato slices before drying. They smelled fabulous, my whole house smelled like good Italian food for hours. The results did not disappoint either… WOW are they good! Hard to not sit there and snack on them like a bag of potato chips. Then again, why not?

I apologize for talking about something twice so soon after the first instance. BUT, I had a great thing happen. I took my blueberry jam to my friends at the organic bakery. They tried it and loved it so much they want me to make it for them to sell. But here’s the catch: pectin isn’t necessarily organic. I needed to find a way to make the jam without it (or with a natural source of it).

Being that I don’t like being dependent on buying a product just so I can make something and save a few bucks, I was game to try and figure this out too.

Apples naturally contain pectin. In fact, the original sources of pectin were from apple juicing factories back in the 1920s. The pulpy mess that’s left after the apples were pressed was perfect for use as pectin, and sold to pectin-making factories which used to somehow distill it into a liquid form for sale.

So for my first effort, I mixed in half apples, half blueberries as follows below. The results were very pleasant, this is a less sweet jam though you can easily add more sugar if you so desire. I’ve found the general rule of thumb is 3/4 to 1 cup sugar per cup crushed fruit (I have seen almost double that in some recipes, but I think that would be way too sweet & you might wind up with blueberry syrup instead).

Blueberry-Apple Jam

4 c. finely chopped, peeled apples
2 c. water
4 c. fresh or frozen blueberries
3 3/4 c. sugar

In a 4-6 quart kettle, mix apples and water; simmer uncovered until apples are soft — 15 to 20 minutes. Mash if necessary. Stir in berries. Simmer uncovered 5 minutes. Stir in sugar. Bring to a rolling boil. Boil until jam sheets off a metal spoon — 5 to 6 minutes. Pour into hot, clean jars, leaving 1/2 inch headspace. Wipe edge with a damp cloth.

After that, I thought I would try with just blueberries, a really simple sort of mixture, and see what would happen if I just boiled the berries down for a long time. Surely they’d become less watery over time. This did work, the jam is delicious, and with the long boiling time a lot of the skins broke down and so it’s almost a jelly than a jam. I wound up boiling for 50 minutes - and found out the hard way you cannot ignore the pot for a minute and try to empty the dishwasher at the same time. I had it boil over in what seemed a split second - talk about a MESS as it went down the front of my stove and into a puddle on the floor.

Blueberry Jam

8 cups blueberries

8 cups sugar

2 cups water

Demolish blueberries in food processor, then measure. Add water, boil. Add sugar, and boil almost to jelling point. Pour boiling hot into jars and seal.

I take the jams to the bakery tomorrow to see which they prefer - I’ll let you know what happens! And then I promise, no more blueberry posts for a while.

The front of my stove is still stained, by the way. I’ve tried baking soda and vinegar and lemon, but that blue streak is still there. Anybody have any ideas on how to get that out?

It’s been a busy day. I’ve been getting ready for company, thus running around doing a great deal of cleaning, then errands, plus it was “Vote Day” today. It’s a sticky 90+ outside and all these errands made me oh-so-eager to get back to my 79 degree thermostat at home.

As I entered the grocery store trying to mentally recall what I had written on my list and then left behind in my haste out the door, I glanced at the carts of discounted groceries lined up by the entrance. Usually it’s all heavily processed, High Fructose Corn Syrup-laden junk food that’s about to expire.  Today though, I glanced again.

My new favorite pasta was being clearanced out. Amish Naturals, the whole kit & caboodle of organic, whole wheat goodness, for $1 each. I say new favorite because I swear, it’s only been in the store for a few weeks. Check the date: it’s still good until Christmas.

I probably looked a little silly, and I did draw a few interesting glances while in process, but I took every last bag and box they had sitting there. Not too long ago, a box of regular pasta was .98 cents. Jump up to whole wheat and present day, and it’s at least $3 a box.

Still excited about my 2 or 3 month supply of pasta, I swung past the bread aisle out of curiosity on my way through the store. My healthy goodness pastas have already been replaced with their bleached, super sweet, white counterparts. Ugh. At least I know I have a few months to locate a new source.

The next hurdle was checkout. I only brought one fabric bag with me, just enough for what I had written on the list that I so smartly left at home. I decided for the bagboy to just set the pasta into another cart as it was registered. This always confuses people. Why don’t I want a plastic bag? Or twenty of them, as would be in this case? Then I become the nutball who mentions those bags take 1,000 years to decompose. Then I have to stop helpful bagboy #2 who wants to jump in and help, but doesn’t understand that THIS crazy lady, who actually eats whole wheat organic pasta, doesn’t want ANYTHING in a plastic bag.

The wine too? All together, in the fabric bag? No plastic bags to use as padding to keep it from clinking?

Sigh. This is why I put things in my bags myself. Because I know that the wine bottles can be safely sequestered from each other by the tub of “butter,” the soy creamer, and if need be, a box of pasta. What do they teach in schools these days? Surely not basic problem solving.

At any rate: no matter how often the clearance section of your store is full of junk food, it still pays to check every time you go in. A few months ago I got a good score of organic spices for half price - still loving that one!

We’ve been on a bit of a blueberry bonanza here. We’ve gone picking twice and brought home about 6 gallons worth of blueberries. Some got frozen. Some went into muffins and pancakes. A good many became jam, and the jam is disappearing very quickly. The frozen ones go into our morning fruit smoothie breakfasts: 2 bananas, a handful of strawberries and a generous handful of blueberries, 8 ice cubes and a splash of soymilk).

I’m not sure that there’s anything tree-huggery about getting your hands on all the organic blueberries you can, but it’s definitely frugal. Blueberries are EXPENSIVE in the store, which is why we never have any. They’re so good for you too, being high in antioxidants - antioxidants being the current poster-child for preventing all kinds of diseases and cancers and general aging (who knows for sure?).

Blueberry jam, odd as it may sound, is actually really yummy and goes well on just about anything. You can use the basic recipe on the sure-jell box. I’m going to experiment with using apple peel as a natural pectin for my next batch, since we’re down to one jar already. Just by making my own jam I’m probably saving us some money - at $3.98/jar at the minimum for inorganic jam, I’m reusing old jars and am only footing the cost of sugar and the electricity to boil the mess for a minute.  Once you’ve made jam once, you wonder why you’d ever buy a jar of questionable origin ever again. It’s really easy, it doesn’t take long, and the results are fantastic.