Preparedness for when

hauxwell

DawnW wrote: »

Dehydrating peeps, can I pick your brains please? Do you dehydrate till the product is flexible/ bendy or really dry like crisps? I have only really done 'sun dried' tomatoes in my dehydrator, until they are dry but not hard (am I making sense?) and then put them in jars with olive oil and herbs. I would like to deal with the courgettes mountain, but suspect that this might not be appropriate? Suggestions please!

Someone mentioned onions earlier - what texture do you aim for please?

With toms I aim for dry but soft if storing in oil or very dry if not. Apples/peaches dry but soft as I prefer to eat them that way.

Everything else I do really dry and store in clip top kilners or very tight glass jars. Courgette dries really well, I have two 2 litre jars full from this season already.

Doing stuff really dry seems to help with the storage time as I have had somethings for several years and they are still fine.

thriftwizard

Rule of thumb: vegetables, as Lyn says, need to be crispy-crunchy dry, but fruit can be bendy dry. This is because of soil-borne bacteria, IIRC, which are obviously less of a problem in things that don't grow on or under the ground!

Karmacat

mardatha wrote: »

Hi Karmacat Colder here and I hate autumn and I'm ratty.
Usual day really.

GreyQueen wrote: »

Hello and welcome, karmakat. You'll like it in here, we're a bit nutty in the nicest possible way.

westcoastscot wrote: »

Karmacat nice to meet you - I tend to bob in and out of the thread :-)

Was interested to read that you compost your B & W shredding? I've always thought that all shredded paper would poison the soil but would love to hear otherwise. I use it at the mo for the chickens :-)

:hello::hello::hello: Hello peeps, thank you all for the welcome - I meant to lurk, but its impossible for me to lurk on mse

Shredding, WCS, I act on the idea that its the colour inks that are poisonous .... I've always taken that to mean magazine inks, but thinking about it, stuff we print at home in black and white has *some* coloured ink in it too. So, um, I have no accurate knowledge whatsoever A list on mnn refers to "heavily coated or printed paper" - I'd better stop, then, I guess. Oh dear. Well, there's never a huge amount, and it saves me keeping it by.

Karmacat

As I go on and on about, given the chance, I'm also putting by any tin cans I have without a plastic lining - when I have enough, I'll make a solar dehydrator. I'm a cheapskate :money: and quite poor :money: and prepping like this has finally given me the chance to act on mad little projects like this, I love it.

westcoastscot

karmacat thanks for that - hadn't thought through about the B & W having an element of colour in it - shall keep it for the chucks then in places where I don't compost.

I love these wee projects too - loving the idea of a solar dehydrator, I knew someone who dried things on the back shelf of the car, but not sure we get enough sun up here!!! When we had the rayburn I used to dry them in that - wonder if I could rig something with my stove???? All I dry just now is herbs from the garden by hanging them from the pulley among the laundry :-)

armyknife

GreyQueen wrote: »

....
Going to wander off into Zero Hedge and Infowars to see what the alt. media are saying. The joy of being a hedgie is that you tend to know about stuff anything from 24 hours to 7 days before other people, in my experience, anyway. It's good to have a hint of the sharks moving under the surface........
....

Good grief, you can get news from Infowars ?

fuddle

Really interested in drying without modern kit, especially as nuatha told me about drying elderberries in the oven. I'm heading to the range tomorrow in the hope of finding an air tight jar for the syrup BTW

Welcome karmacat I lurk mostly and a newbie prepper even though I've been doing it for about a year now.

Thank you for the info about the Manuka honey number the cake and pineapple. I'm guessing then that the higher the number, the better it is for you... and more expensive, but I will look in Aldi for the 10+ one because I'm a 'medicinal' honey fan anyway with just the rubbish supermarket stuff.

Karmacat

WCS, thats classic, hanging herbs from the pulley to dry! My family never did it, but I've seen it in so many pictures. I had a lot of rosemary to dry recently, the bush didn't make it over the last winter, and I put it in a huge baking tray after I'd finished using the oven one day - then kept it hanging around, with a piece of newspaper over it (to keep the dust off, as a website helpfully informed me ) but I think I let it go too long, it lost a fair bit of its aroma. Still, I'll use it - must check out ways for a veggie person to use rosemary.

maryb

I know Mardatha swears by honey and as far as I can recall, she says any honey is good (though some are even better).

I seem to remember reading somewhere that the chemical reaction of body fluids to honey produces a very mild form of hydrogen peroxide which is a very effective antiseptic

jk0

jk0 wrote: »

Thanks FL. I bought one of these bed warmers from Ebay last year, and I definitely recommend them:

http://www.20thcenturylondon.org.uk/ems-be570

Trouble is, unless it's really perishing, I forget to put it on.

I have a new gadget. Basically it's a low energy remote control with three receivers: http://www.nigelsecostore.com/acatalog/Standby_Saver_Kit.html

I have my bed warmer plugged into one, and my two electronic dogs plugged into the other two. The dogs get turned on when I go out, and the bed warmer will be going on in a minute. The transmitter is stuck on the hall wall with blu-tack.

(Just have to remember to put the warmer in my bed when I make it now.)