Quantcast
You are here: Home / Archives for Food Preparation / Recipes / Techniques and Tutorials

Dehydrating Zucchini and Summer Squash (Chips and Shredded)

August 31, 2012 By 22 Comments
zucc-chips
Email

For today’s seasonal recipe round-up on squash (and zucchini), I’d like to show you how to dehdyrate it. A single zucchini or squash plant is quite productive and can easily overwhelm a good sized family. So preserving it for the future is a good and frugal idea. Not to mention that your family may be pretty sick of it, if you’re eating a lot fresh. The two best ways I’ve found to dehydrate zucchini are: shredded and thinly sliced. The thinly sliced become zucchini chips and they’re really good!

Filed Under: Dehydrating, Food Preparation, Preserving, Recipes, Seasonal Recipe Round-Up, Techniques and Tutorials

A Big Batch of Cultured Butter

October 24, 2011 By 3 Comments
collage2
Email

I’m at my friend Shannon’s Nourishing Days blog today, sharing how I make a big batch of cultured butter. How is this different than my cultured butter in the food processor? For one, it is a bigger batch, like 7 to 8 times bigger — instead of yielding 1 pound of butter, I get between 7 and 8. I like this because I can make more butter less often which equals less work. :) I also employ another time saver — culturing the cream while it’s still in the milk.

Filed Under: Cultured Dairy, Dips and Spreads, Dips and Spreads (Gluten-Free), Fermenting and Culturing, Food Preparation, Recipes, Techniques and Tutorials

FREE Video: How to Dehydrate Plums/Prunes

October 10, 2011 By 5 Comments
dehydrate-plums-square
Email

In the last free video, I showed you how to freeze prunes or plums — this time, I’m showing you how to dehydrate them. They’re easy to do, take up very little storage space and don’t require special temperatures (although cooler is better). The only problem is, they get eaten too quickly! ;)

Filed Under: Food Preparation, Recipes, Techniques and Tutorials, Videos

FREE Video: How to Freeze Plums/Prunes

September 27, 2011 By 8 Comments
plums
Email

It is prune and plum season in Oregon — one of my favorite times of year! In today’s video, I show you how easy it is to freeze plums/prunes for use in the winter. In the off-season, I use frozen plums to make plum sauce or we toss the plums in smoothies. The great thing about using frozen fruit for smoothies is it acts like ice, too!

Filed Under: Food Preparation, Recipes, Techniques and Tutorials, Videos

Free Video: Homemade Fruit Fly Trap

June 21, 2011 By 35 Comments
fruit-flies
Email

It’s that time of year! Fruit flies go crazy for fermenting foods, and fermenting concoctions are a hallmark of a traditional kitchen. What to do about them? Try my homemade fruit fly trap. It really works — and better yet, it is simple. Watch me put one together in this short, free video. This post also includes the print instructions.

Filed Under: Food Preparation, Techniques and Tutorials, Videos

How to Wax Cheese

June 6, 2011 By 30 Comments
waxed-cheese-2
Email

Waxing cuts down on mold and putrefying bacteria’s access to cheese while it ages, and it also prevents cheese from drying out too much. I put off trying waxing as long as I could simply because I didn’t want to use wax. And until we had a cow, we could keep up with the cheeses I made from our goat’s milk — so no need to wax or put up cheese for off-season. Fast forward to now. Getting 4 to 5 gallons of milk a day means I make alot of cheese. So… learn to wax, I must. And I did!

Filed Under: eCourse, Food Preparation, Recipes, Techniques and Tutorials

Free Video: Homemade, Natural, All-Purpose Cleaner

May 25, 2011 By 28 Comments
ap-cleaner
Email

I made up this natural, homemade, all-purpose cleaner recipe years ago. I copied a more expensive cleaner that I really liked. I looked at the other cleaner’s ingredients and realized I had everything it included, so I started making it myself for a fraction of the cost. This post includes a video recipe and a print recipe.

Filed Under: Food Preparation, Techniques and Tutorials, Videos

How to Render (Goat) Fat

December 21, 2010 By 21 Comments
filling-crock
Email

My husband and kiddoes butchered a goat last weekend. B. came in the house and asked me what I wanted before they hung it or gave the innards to Areli (our dog), and I said, “The fat, the heart and the liver.” The heart and liver I plan to add to other meat dishes to boost nutrition. The fat was destined for rendering and a multitude of cooking uses: definitely frying, perhaps pastries, and possibly soap.

Filed Under: Food Preparation, Recipes, Techniques and Tutorials

Homemade Raw Cheddar Cheese

September 22, 2010 By 39 Comments
cheddar
Email

They say this cheddar gets better with age. I don’t know about that because we ate it fresh. ;) For those of you without a cheese press, you can eat the curds fresh and un-pressed!

Filed Under: Food Preparation, Recipes, Techniques and Tutorials
«Older Posts