De-hy Made Wicked Easy

There is so much I have to say about my six month love affair with Mr. Excalibur but I really do not want to overwhelm anyone. I am a slow and steady kind of gal and whenever I am learning about something important, I want to take my time and practice, practice, practice. So, here it goes.

Frozen vegetables. Yes, you heard me right, frozen vegetables. I, personally, have never liked them. You take them out of that bag and dump them in a bowl. Stick them in the microwave. Complain that you have made too much-or too little, and they taste nasty. I was a HUGE skeptic when I started researching dehydrating frozen vegetables. I thought to myself, "What a waste of time, energy and money to end up with a nasty product that I will be stuck with for 30-plus years".

Have you ever been wrong? I mean, completely, over the top-wrong? Well, I have. Several times as a matter of fact, but completely wrong in my thinking about dehydrating frozen foods. The process is the simplest of all the dehydrating processes. You buy frozen vegetables, spread them on a tray, stick them in your machine, 12-15 hours later-voila- food.

I don't mean just get-by food. This is all we have- so eat it food... but real food. It tastes at least a million times better than that right out of the freezer. The process frozen food endures before it comes to the store is incredibly close to natural. Imagine dehydrating one bag of corn and recapturing the taste that was meant to be there to start with. Yum. A word of caution: One bag of frozen corn will turn into about one cup. Be careful when re-hydrating that you are planning the correct serving size for your needs. Otherwise, you can wind up with an overabundance of food. Waste not-want not!

Of course, we will discuss reconstitution and meal preparation- with some amazing recipes- soon enough. I want to give you hope and inspiration. Some techniques take a lot of time and prep. some do not. I look out for specials on frozen vegetables. We have nine trays. That equals nine bags of veggies. I found that Shaw's has many "buy 2 get 1 free" That means that I buy 6 and get 3 free. I come away with 9 sides for pennies. Add their frozen hash browns and potatoes for a few more and all you are missing is protein. Another future thought.

I LOVE the sound of Mr. Excalibur running. It is a soothing, satisfying purr. It says, "You are so smart, I can tell how much you want to take care of your family."