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! :)

What's for dinner?

I tried a new recipe tonight that I wanted to share. It was delicious! Here's the recipe (and sorry I didn't get a picture taken):

Pasta Fagioli

2 T olive oil
1 clove minced garlic
1 large onion, chopped (I only used half of a large onion )

Heat oil, garlic and onion in a large saucepan. Then add:

1 large can diced tomatoes
1 8 oz can tomato sauce
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. pepper
2 tsp. dried basil
2 T parsley
1 can kidney beans, drained

Simmer for 25 minutes. In the meantime, cook 2 cups of shell pasta. Add the pasta and fresh grated parmesan cheese to the sauce just before serving.

Enjoy!