My Loving Home

Homemaking "This and That"

Hello!

I'm always trying to learn new skills which will help me to be a better homemaker. I am so grateful to the Lord for giving me a family to care for--what a joy and a privilege! It is an awesome responsibility, and that's why I'm always looking for new ways to do better at my wonderful job!

I thought I better get busy learning how to use this wonderful gift, so my first dehydrated "projects" were apple and banana slices. Here are the bananas "before":

Here are the "after" apple slices:

Here is the fruit, bagged and labeled in freezer bags, ready for storage:

The bananas turned fairly brown during dehydrating. My instruction book didn't specify to treat the banana slices; I'm wondering if I should have. I did treat the apples with a lemon juice/water mixture and they didn't brown too badly. The next day I tried apple and pear slices, and they turned out really well.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

We did a little shopping yesterday, and I used my Christmas money to buy a new pressure canner. I've never had one before, and I am thrilled with this purchase. And I was able to buy it for an excellent price, almost $30 cheaper than I had found it online. It's a Presto 23-quart:

I bought some 1/2 price whole chickens last week, and I'm planning on cooking them and canning the meat and broth. It will be a new experience for me, but I'm excited to prepare delicious, home-made foods for my family.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

I also bought a few inexpensive supplies for starting seeds indoors. I already had a small, mini-greenhouse seed starter from a few years ago, so these supplies will help me be ready to start our garden plants. Hubby and I talked yesterday, and we're going to order seeds from Burpees.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

I found this little herb growing kit on sale; my daughters and I are going to start this project in the next week or two. Used with the dehydrator, we hope to have some herbs to store long-term, and to use in cooking. This kit includes seeds for Basil, Chives, and Parsley plants:

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Blessings from my home to yours!
~Jennie

Doing Great!

{ 07:50, Sunday, January 4, 2009 } { Posted by chella }

I just wanted to let you know that you are doing a great job and that the deals you got were amazing! Please update the blog and let us know how you first pressure canning went! :0)

Chella

dehydrating

{ 11:32, Friday, January 16, 2009 } { Posted by Becky }

Something that we occasionally do to our apples, before we dehydrate them, sprinkle them with a mixture of cinnamon & sugar or sprinkle different flavors of Jello on them. My dd has a really big sweet tooth so we only do this occasionally. Also, if anyone in your family likes those sour candies - dehydrate a kiwi fruit, they go sour when they are dehydrated!

When preparing our apples for dehydrating, I use an apple peeler/corer that we got from Pampered Chef (but you can find similar items elsewhere): http://www.pamperedchef.com/our_products/catalog/product.jsp?productId=229&categoryCode=CE
I peel the apples by hand because I find that the peeler feature takes away to much of the apple. It slices them fairly thin so it reduces the amount of time for drying them, which is nice for busy days. =)

Try dipping your bananas in a lemon/water mixture before dehydrating them, it makes it so that they don't turn brown - my recipe didn't tell me that .... figured it out through trial and error.