Sorry I have been MIA lately. I’ve been busy selling my handmade jewelry at craft shows every weekend with my sister and seem to barely be home and when I am home, I’m rebuilding my stock. This means driving 30 minutes to the grocery store and 30 minutes back is not on the schedule. Luckily, I can shop from my home pantry.

When I went to cook meatloaf the other week, I didn’t even check for the ingredients before I just started making it and realized I didn’t have a fresh onion. I went to the pantry and pulled out a mason jar of prechopped freeze dried onions. (Bonus they were already chopped) I thought about rehydrating the onions for a few seconds before throwing them in but decided to just try it out like I do on my pizzas and throw them in dry. I figured the grease would rehydrate them. It worked beautifully.

Some things I will freeze dry in meals but a lot of things I will freeze dry individual so I can use it in any way I need it and essential create my own store at home that I can shop from every day. Adding my freeze dried items and my recently bought store items together to cook a dinner because they are both fresh ingredients 🙂

Avocados were so delicious with our tacos on family dinner night I needed to do more and have some extra on the shelf. I go 14 Hass Avocados and it fit on 3 trays (the 15th slipped in my basket not ripe enough to use) You can check out the reconstitution of the avocados on the Family Dinner Post

14 Hass Avocados gave me 4 1/2 quart size mason jars of yummy avocado’s ready for me to use anytime of the next 25 years.

I also did a tray of zucchini chips testing with different seasonings. The jury is still out on these chips. I think next time I will try them thicker and will let you know how I like those.

What Tools I Used:
Breville Food Proccessor – which makes chopping a breeze, I love this machine and use it for so many things. You will see throughout my posts I use it often and it saves me so much time.
Fry Scoop – to help get the food in the jars
Canning Funnel – to help get the food in jars
Harvest Right Medium Freeze Dryer
Food Saver – You will need one with an accessories attachment

Steps:
1) Peel and chop your avocados placing them on your tray with mat
2)Freeze Dry
3)Scoop your avocadoes into your food processor and blend until the chunkiness you desire ( I link some chunk to my avocadoes but not too big to make it still fast to reconstitute)
4)Place in mason jars or mylar bags and seal

Freeze drying is simple, You have the prep time of putting your food on your trays and then putting them in the freeze dryer and pushing start. Then you leave it to do it’s magic and check on it when you walk by for the next 24-36 hours to see what the machine says. It will tell you when it’s ready and then you pull your food out and jar it up.

Note: If using mylar bags you need to use an oxygen absorber or you can put it in a mason jar and seal with a food processor attachment.

As we were getting dinner ready tonight, I realized nothing was going in the freeze dryer. I needed to get something in going fast. My mom said she was wanting to do a run of olives but she hadn’t been to the store yet to get a full run of olives. So between our two houses (we are neighbors) we each filled two trays of sliced olives and in the Harvest Right freeze dryer they went. This will be our first-time running olives and I can’t wait to try them. I have a few ideas on how I will use these olives when they come out.

IDEAS:
– Using them in a salad to give a little crunch
– Adding them to our homemade pizza’s and letting the sauce rehydrate them as they cook.

What is your favorite way to use your olives?

24 hours later olives are out and ready to be jarred up. I decided to put them in smaller jars so I don’t have to reseal the jar every time I use a handful of olives. I will use an open jar and put a ring on it to hold fresh while I use it up.