Wild Roses & Apple chips: 4 Creative Things To Do With Freeze-Dried Food

Sunday, June 24, 2012

4 Creative Things To Do With Freeze-Dried Food

Another great installment from Lisa Bedford! Thanks Lisa! :-)

4 Creative Things To Do With Freeze-Dried Food

(That you may not have thought of.)

Have you been stocking up on freeze-dried and/or dehydrated food? They're great products for food storage, and I have plenty myself. If you're planning on hoarding them for the zombie apocalypse, though, you may want to reconsider. These foods are excellent to use right now because they are picked at just the right moment before they are dried and retain that fresh flavor and nearly all their original nutrients.

1. Use them in canning recipes!

Why not? Whenever a canning recipe calls for fruit, refer to the label on the dried food to figure the equivalent to fresh. Get ready for super-fresh flavors in your recipes and without having to clean, peel, cut, and slice fresh fruit.

2. Use them to make fruit leather!

This is even easier than canning because it only requires that you rehydrate the dried fruit with water or fruit juice to make a thick paste that can be spread onto fruit leather trays or parchment paper. Try mixing flavors together for new taste bud treats: mango/strawberry, apple/raspberry. Yummm! Fruit leather can be rolled up and stored in canning jars with an oxygen absorber for longer shelf life.

3. Make homemade, customized snack mixes!

Are you as tired of "gorp" as I am? The old peanut, raisin, and M&M mixture has seen better days! Instead, take 2 or 3 or 4 varieties of freeze dried produce, combine them with dry cereals, mini marshmallows, chocolate chips, and nuts for something new. We get a completely new mixture every time we try this because we just use whatever is in the pantry. Our snack mixes get rave reviews whenever we take them to parties, and they're even better for road trips, camping, and other away-from-home activities.

4. Create your own dehydrated, Mountain House-style meals!

Store-bought dehydrated/freeze-dried meals can be very expensive. They also contain ingredients you may not want to consume, such as high levels of sodium. It's quite easy to create your own meals using familiar recipes and then packaging them in either Food Saver vacuum-packed bags, canning jars with oxygen absorbers, or just zip-loc bags, if you'll be using them within a few weeks. Check out this download and articles here and here.