Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Dehydrated Green Peppers

Have I mentioned yet how much I love my dehydrator? Well, I do. :) Now, in the fall, things are so busy with harvesting and canning that I don't always have time to get everything done that I'd like to. I picked a bunch of green peppers from our ward garden at the end of the season, chopped them up and put them into the freezer. I filled a gallon sized ziplock bag with them. That was quite a few peppers! Now, the freezer is a fine place to preserve your chopped green peppers, but I had other ideas in mind. I love preserving food--but even more so, I love getting it out of the freezer and on to the shelf.

Last night, I finally finished my green pepper project. I took out my bag of green peppers and put them in the dehydrator last night. (I had some of them thawed already in the fridge, so I took the rest of the bag out of the freezer and ran them under hot water to thaw them out, just because I was impatient).


They dried up beautifully! I put them all into a quart jar and it only filled half of a jar! Then I vacuum sealed it.

Ta da! All those green peppers that were taking up space in my freezer are now in a jar sitting on my shelf ready to be used in any recipe that I need them for.

Just a note--normally you have to blanch veggies before you dehydrate them. When you freeze them (or even buy frozen veggies on great sales) they no longer need to be blanched before you dehydrate them (sorry, I don't have the scientific info on that). The part of the vegetable that gets broken down during blanching also gets broken down when they are frozen.

**I just found another brilliant idea and am going to try it and post it. Stay tuned! :)






9 comments:

  1. how much was your dehydrator? and were did you get it?

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  2. I have a nine tray Excaliber and love it. I got in on ebay a few years ago. It was probably about $200. I had to think of it as an investment and it has been a great one! Thanks for the question, I'll try to a more detailed blog post about it.

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  3. I was wondering how long they would last unsealed? I don't have a way to seal them

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  4. Oh yes, and could you shar more about dehydrating

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  5. Carol, if you store your dehydrated food in an airtight container (preferably glass) I would give them up to a year at most. Thanks for your interest, I usually slow on my dehydrating in the winter, but there is still lots that I can do. I will get working on that! :)

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  6. I love bell peppers and use them in tons of meals what do you your dehydated peppers for besides soups? Do you rehydrate them? Are they good afeter you do? oh I just found your blog and Love it!!

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    1. I meant my last comment to be a reply to you. . . oops. Anyway, thanks!

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  7. I use my peppers mainly for lasagna. I usually just throw them into my sauce and let them re-hydrate there. I'm not a huge pepper person, but when there are ample leftover from the garden I love to have them preserved and on hand so I don't have to buy one at the store.

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  8. Hey thanks so much I didn't know freezing would eliminate the need for blanching! I hate blanching first. From now on I'll just freeze first. =)

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