We had planned to get back to our Autumn preserving posts but based on comments, emails and conversation with others, it appears that there is still interest in updates on our preserving for 1,000.
It’s getting trickier. I am out of the house for almost 12 hours for work. If food gets too dry in the dehydrator, things become a crispy mess. I’m trying to time things to finish when I’m here – and at a time that I will have time to fill the beast back up. We also have a busy social calendar this week – tonight was an awesome preserve swap with 40+ local preservers. Was a great night; super people, lots of new friends and great tastes.
I needed something that would dry through the day and complete when I was home for less than 90 minutes. It’s like throwing a dart at a target a mile away.
I loaded it with carrot slices (4 liters) around 6AM – they were complete when I got home at 6 this evening. That was a strong success!
I opened the last 2 liters of carrot slices which were sitting in water – as I opened the jar I was crushed (but only a little) to see bubbles coming over the rim. This means fermentation and that means bacteria and there’s not enough time to salt and ferment them for the weekend (would need about 6 weeks). It’s not the end of the world but I do hate the waste (since they had no salt I am also hesitant to ferment them into pickles).
We did have some roasted peppers from last night (peeled, thankfully) and they’re in the dehydrator with some other sweet and hot peppers we had in the house. So far the air is very breathable – I often worry about some hot peppers making the air acrid and my eyes teary. It can be overwhelming and since it’s 11.30 when I write this I really hope to be done messing about the kitchen.
Garlic is roasting as I write this – also plan to add it the the dehydrator. The garlic and pepper should take 5-6 hours and be ready to be pulled out by 6AM. The dull sound of the dehydrators fan will mercifully rest for 12 or 15 hours tomorrow. Our house smells like pizza and the incessant buzz of the fan is delivering some sort of Hitchcookian horror treatment to our collective subconscious.
It is intended to become garlic powder which will be incorporated with our carrot and pepper powders into our crackers. I’m hoping to pick up a few more ingredients (including onions) at our CSA tomorrow.
My last concern (other than the 1,600 crackers we’re making on Friday night with friends and a LOT of wine) is the sauce. It’s the only thing I wasn’t worried about and it turned to a challenge last night. The entire process went to plan but the tomatoes are extremely acidic. We’ve used carrots to lower acid in the past and heard that adding honey and baking powder may help. We’re going to experiment some more through the week but open to ideas.
The biggest challenge ahead will be finding time to get the last 400-600 piece of tomatoes put in the unit. Another social event tomorrow evening will make finding the 2-3 hours of prep time more difficult than manageable. I am hoping I can load them tomorrow night as they’ll take the best part of 18 hours and would work out for my return from work on Wednesday. This would allow for 3 more well-timed batches of ingredients for the crackers and put is in great shape for the weekend.
I get the feeling a lot will ride on the hours of about 10-12 tomorrow night.
Also, if it’s not obvious, we’re still having a lot of fun.
We’ll make sure to get some pics of whatever this final product ends up being – I’ll be proud regardless; but hope the flavours give us real reason to be.
