More than milk Convenient tasty and healthy foods can be found in the refrigerated dairy
hey everybody, i'm christy jordan with southernplate.com.last week, or maybe two weeks ago by the time i get this (video) up, i did a video on youtubeto discuss how to afford groceries (i have a neighbor that is doing something ~explainingnoise~) how to afford groceries during times of rapid price increases.as i said in that video, a study has come out that says that household staples haverisen as much as 69% in last two years alone. but they've been rising for the last fouryears they've been rising pretty rapidly. so anyway...my dog just hit the camera...oneof the ways that you can save money, you know a lot of times is buying things in bulk andput them up in the freezer or buy things on sale and put them up. another thing i suggestedis buy now at today's prices because the prices
are going to continue to increase tomorrow.but for a lot of us freezer space is at a premium. i actually have a deep freezer inaddition to the freezer on top of my fridge but i find that frozen foods are the one thingi'm always struggling to find places to put them because i'm always out of space. i keepmy freezer pretty full, which is a good thing. so, one of the solutions for that is a dehydratorand i'm going to show you, this is a really neat tip, i like to buy - it is much cheaperto buy vegetables frozen in large quantities. this is a bag from sam's. this is four pounds,eight ounces, so four and a half pound bag of frozen corn.i've also got a 4 and a half pound bag of frozen mixed vegetables. we like these a lot.both of these, i use them a lot in casseroles,
soups, stews, but a lot of people don't realizethat you can dehydrate frozen vegetables and it saves a lot of space and let me show youan example here. this bag, once it is dehydrated, is goingto be a little more than a jars worth. i had a little more than this but this is dehydratedvegetables and i dehydrated these... probably about, i don't know, umm, 6 months ago maybe?but they keep really well and the great thing is they take up less space, they weigh less(but that isn't really a problem), but they take up less space and they keep for a verylong time in your pantry. so, you can put these anywhere in your house, because theydon't have to take up the precious freezer space. and then when it comes time to usethem you just rehydrate them.
if i'm doing a soup or stew i just pour somedirectly into the broth. and i have found that, probably about 1/2 cup, or maybe a cup,equals one of these little bags in here. let me open one of these bags...so you reallyuse a lot less than you think you're gonna use. i mean, keep in mind this is four anda half pounds of vegetables when they were frozen. so, let me get this open.one of these is gonna condense down, it'll be about...it will be less than a half a cupfor twelve ounces of these vegetables once i dehydrate them.this is some of my corn which, i've used a lot. in the winter i use it a lot in soupsand stews. i like to make chicken stew. umm..one
of my problems with keeping corn is that ittastes so good! just dehydrated corn. it's very sweet and you've got that nice crunch.i love dehydrated corn. so i have a problem keeping this jar around.i tend to keep that...that empties really fast.so we're gonna move on to the dehydrator now and i'm doing to show you how simple it isto dehydrate these vegetables and free up your freezer space. buy vegetables in bulk,dehydrate them. they are shelf stable at room temp, don't have to be frozen, and it takesup a lot less space. so, we'll move on to the dehydrator. okay now we've got all of our vegetables.i've got six bags of super sweet frozen corn.
six bags of mixed vegetables. i've got 'emall out. this is my excalibur, 9 tray dehydrator witha timer on it. i bought myself this for christmas this year. you know, some people want jewelryand stuff and thats all good and well but this is something that is useful, it's aninvestment, it can help my family, it can save us money, and make our lives more convenient.so i bought this. you do not have to have this dehydrator. for years, before i boughtthis one, i used one that was a generic, one of the round dehydrators with the trays thati got from gander mountain on sale. so any dehydrator will work. do not feel likeyou have to go get, you know, this is kind of a cadillac model, but you don't have tohave this.
anyway, what i'm going to do is take my dooroff. and i'm just going to take the trays out one by one, and i'm going to put abouttwo bags of vegetables on each tray. i just kinda spread them out a little bit. you don'twant to overload it but when i'm doing this many vegetables at once i also kinda need to maximize as muchspace as i can. so i am doing, normally i would only do likethe mixed vegetables or the corn, just one at once and spread them out a little morebut i wanna get these suckers frozen because they're taking up too much space in my freezerand i really don't have the space available right now.i try to save that freezer space as much as i can for meat and things because i can alwaysfind that on sale. i usually try to hit the
stores a couple of times a week looking fordeals on meat because that is the most expensive part of the meal.okay now as this dehydrates, it is going to get smaller. so eventually, it will take upa lot less space by the time i pull it out. and i'm going to continue until i load upall the trays with corn and mixed vegetables. that's one bag of corn. like i said, i amloading these pretty heavily. not necessarily recommending that you load it this heavilybut it'll work, the excalibur can take it. and like i said, you know, any dehydratorworks. look into what financial options are available for you, what you can afford, andget the best that you can afford. but they're all really good. i used that one for yearsand years. we dehydrate stuff all the time,
especially in the summer when the garden iscoming in. we dehydrate everything. if we have bananas going bad, we make banana chips.if we have apples going bad, we make apple chips. sometimes we just do experiments indehydrating and i'll be sharing some more of our experiments with you. we've come upwith some really neat things that you can have b dehydrating.okay so i'll be back in just a minute, when i have all of these trays loaded up.okay so i've got all my trays loaded here. well most of them, i ended up not using someof them. but i could have spread my vegetables out a little more but this is gonna be justfine. you'll see in the morning when they're dehydrated.i'm going to put my lid on here. and then
if you'll notice most dehydrators, on thetop they'll have a chart and it will tell you what temperature to turn it to , bothof mine i've ever had have done this, so i've got it on the vegetables temperature and i'mgoing to set this timer to about, i think i'll start with about fourteen hours. youcan find charts that tell you how long to dehydrate vegetables and this and that buti usually just make sure it runs overnight and i check on it in the morning. it'll befine. the only thing you want to get particular about is fruit, because you don't want toover dry those but these i want them as dry as i can get them. so we're gonna get thisstarted dehydrating and tomorrow i'll show you our results!okay so the next morning, lets see what we've
got. we have dehydrated overnight. here areour mixed vegetables. here is our corn. you see it's all nice and dry now.and now what i'm going to do is take these and i'll put them in a jar. like this. i'vevacuum sealed this with my foodsaver but don't have to vacuum seal it,you certainly don't.you can just put it in there and put the lid on and that's all you've got to do.so this is a little less than an entire bag of vegetables. i would need about anotherjar, i'd fill another jar up not quite half way to be done with a complete bag of those.that's how little space it takes up. this is about a dozen fresh bell peppers thati found on sale. see, i just chopped them and dehydrated them. i can use those in casseroles,soups, and stews.
and let me show you what this looks like reconstituted.so, these are some of these same mixed veggies that i went ahead and ..all i did is i justadd water to cover and then bring it to a boil and then drain. and that's it. and ifyou're doing soups or stews or something you don't have to do that, just toss them directlyinto the broth. here is some of the corn that i did. it tastesjust like canned corn. it's delicious, it's very sweet. but takes up considerable lessspace and doesn't require refrigeration or the freezer to store.so dehydrating, this is a good option for those of y'all, if you like food preservation,if you can, and freeze and put up food in order to save money, in order to preserveyour harvest. there are all kinds of ways.
a lot of people overlook dehydrating as ameans of even just saving freezer space, being able to take advantage of the deals and stillsave freezer space. so i realize not everybody has a dehydrator but i just wanted to presentthis as an option you might want to consider and like i said, any dehydrator will work.this will save you money. it will allow you to store vegetables for a very long periodof time without taking up precious freezer space. these can go in your bedroom closet,anywhere, that shelf you never use, you can fill it with these vegetables and leave yourfreezer free. thank you so much for watching and y'all havea great day. see you on southernplate.com!
