Making Mock Pineapple using Zucchini.

Making Mock Pineapple using Zucchini.

This is an other good use for your large zucchinis and.the kids really like them.

You will need

large zucchini

Frozen concentrated pineapple juice

1 cup of sugar per can of juice (optional)

Powder sugar or corn starch

.

Start by peeling and getting the seeds out they should look like this.

Then slice each half into 3 slices.

Then chop into 1 inch chunks they dehydrate way down.

Pour the juice and sugar into a large pan you do not have to have the sugar it does make them a little sweeter.

Cook down until translucence then cook down about another 30 minutes.

Put on your trays and dehydrate at 130 for about 12 to 18 hours depending on the size of your chunks.

As you can see they get a lot smaller. Take off the trays and put into a bag with a little powder sugar to keep them from sticking to each other.

I reused the juice to make another batch, you can store the juice in the fridge until ready to reuse.

Drying Herbs

I have been harvesting my herbs from my yard here are a few that I am getting ready to hang I have lavender, basil, thyme, oregano, tarragon, lemon balm, and lemon oregano the lemon oregano is new the first year I have grown it will be interesting to experiment with.

I tied them all into bunches

Then hung them above the stove I have chilis and a few ears of corn drying on the stove. hope all gets dry before I have to build a fire. It is starting to get a little cool in the evenings and early mornings.

I even hung by the window.

This is some garlic I hung a while back.

Hopefully tomorrow I can get some more in

We went to the mountains this week-end to look for a camping spot for when we go hunting It was already getting chilly up there and as you can see the trees are already turning colors. Itwas so nice up there  can't wait for hunting so we can spend a few days up there. 

Dehydrating Yogurt

Dehydrating Yogurt

This is good to put in lunches or for snacks. I like to carry it in my hunting pack when hunting and is nice to have for a quick snack.

Drying yogurt is pretty simple you can use homemade or store bought.

Just use fruit roll trays or a sheet of plastic wrap which is what I do. To cheap to buy the fruit roll trays.

I just dump some on the plastic like this.

then just spread it out fairly thin.

Dry it at 125F for about 6 hours

When it is done it to be dry not sticky

The dried yogurt will store fine at room temperature for short term, for a longer term I put in the freezer.

Please feel free to leave a comment or question love to here from you.

Making sausage

Finally I am getting this posted have been trying since Tuesday but my computer is being extra stupid.

We made 60 pounds of sausage this past weekend here is how we made it We had a couple recipes and just took a little from each one and made or own.

We had the pig butchered normally we do it our selves but just have not had the time this year.

We started with 60 pounds of meat

We started with 60 pounds of meat and divided it into two bowls 30 pounds each

In a separate bowl for each 30 pounds we mixed

5/8 cup salt

2 ½ Tbls dry mustard

5 Tbl. Black pepper

2 ½ Tbls ground cloves

5/8 cup Red pepper

2 ½ Tbls cayenne pepper

1 ¼ cup sage

Then added it to the bowl of meat.

Then mixed it by hand real well and well coated

The meat didn’t have much fat in it and we like a little fat in ours so we added some fat ( I save the fat to render into lard)

Then ground it up adding the fat as we ground.

Then we did the second bowl the same way.

60 pounds of sausage

Then we did the second bowl the same way.

I will freeze some in patties, some in half pound packages and can some. Hopefully it will last a little while.

Feel free to leave a comment or question would love to hear from you.