More Food Preserving

 We got a little more rain this morning.

About a quarter of an inch.

We ended with just over 3 inches

yesterday by the time we headed

off to bed.

But it's still pretty muddy out there.

Kyle was BORED after sitting

at his house with nothing to do

for 2 days.

He's not good at just sitting around.

So he and Bear walked down here.

And then he washed a bunch of

the red potatoes we harvested

a couple of months ago.

Then sliced them up and headed

into the kitchen to blanch them.

But first they had to soak for 

about half an hour to get some

of the starch out of them.

So while they were soaking,

we peeled, sliced, and seasoned a

bunch more cucumbers and got them

onto trays for the freeze dryer.

Ran down to the garden and picked another

milk crate full of cucumbers.

Jim will take them with him to the market

and see if he can sell them.

I'm out of seasoning, or I would put them

on trays for the freeze dryer too.

The onions FINALLY got done!

(They were pretty juicy...)

so I got them out of the freeze dryer

and into 2 big mylar bags and 3

quart jars for daily use.

I covered each of the trays with some cheap

white bread to help absorb some of the odor.

It worked really well!

I couldn't smell them at all while they were

in the machine and when I took them out

there was just the faintest onion smell.

And then I ran all the dried bread through

the food processor and made them into

really fine crumb to add to meatloaf.

They smelled delicious!

I got 2 quarts and most of 1 pint of crumbs.

That should last for awhile...

The potatoes are all sliced, blanched,

cooled and now they are on a bath towel

on the counter drying a bit before we

bag them up and put them in the freezer.

I can hear Kyle in the prep room going through the

big bucket of potatoes and sorting them.

We have a few more reds,

a couple purples (he took most of them up

to his house a few weeks ago) and lots of

yukon golds.

We got one basket of yellows.

A small tote of reds, and another small tote

of purples hiding in the background.

They are tiny, but they had a gazillion of them

on each plant and Kyle says they are tasty!

We ended up with 4 quart bags of sliced reds

to put in the freezer for this winter!

They will be delicious in the air fryer!

Meanwhile...

The road should be dry enough by tomorrow for

Rod to run into Hill City and pick up his paycheck

and a can of satin finish varnish.

Then he can finish working on the island.

I'm teaching this weekend,

and he's working at the hardware store

on Saturday from 10-6 and then needs to

run into Hays for a new member baptism

at 7:30. I need to send some cookies or 

something, but I used all my chocolate chips,

so I might just have him buy a bag at the

grocery store.

He won't have enough time to go to

WalMart to get any before the baptism.

Or maybe I'll have him pick up a box of

brownie mix tomorrow and I'll bake up a

batch of brownies to take.

We'll see....

You don't need to frost brownies, right?