Day 7...Whatever....

Are you as tired of this as I am? I mean, don't get me wrong, having beautiful jars filled with dried food is wonderful, but this ad nauseum daily posting is taking all the fun out of it for me! So here you go:

Dried Napa Cabbage:

Slice about 1/4" thick, blanch the thickest parts about 1 minute to soften a bit. Dry at 115 degrees about 8 hours....or was it 10 hours...see the real story is we put this in Desi and there was so much else going on today, that I totally forgot it was in there 'til just a little while ago. Needless to say, it was D.R.Y. Two cabbages filled two quart jars.


Quite awhile ago, we did Sweet Potato Chips...at least, they were supposed to be chips. I think that if someone breaks in the house we could quite literally hurl them at the intruder like those little spinning disks, and they would be either sliced into bits, or they would run screaming from the house, never to return! See...they are too thick, and we left the peels on, so they curled up around the edges, which looks pretty, but makes it very difficult to actually chew them without hurting yourself. You be the judge. But I have a waiver around here somewhere that you need to sign first...now where did I put that darn thing...

Oh, and did we mention plantains? Not the leaf you chew up and put on a bee sting, should you 'bee' so unfortunate to get stung (we have dried that too, by the way), but plantains...the tropical fruit, that is sliced, salted and dried...well, if you REALLY want to eat it, then FRY those puppies! The dried ones are fine...they are just bland like a seersucker dress at a summer picinc.

Oh, this is good.

I have these gorgeous purple basil plants out in my garden. I got them from different places, but they are so very pretty. I have been drying them and filling jars with the gorgeous leaves.

Then Wednesday, the President of the Ladies Homestead Gathering (the PRESIDENT, mind you) was at my house with two of her board members for a meeting. A meeting where I was going to become the president of a new chapter for LHG...excitement was running high, anticipation was building...and she said:

"Oh, you have Parilla growing! You better watch that or it will take over!" "Parilla," I asked, stupidly..."you mean this plant?" (pointing to another swap meet plant I had gotten earlier). No, she was talking about my "purple basil"!! Parilla: "The medicinal uses of perilla include treatment of such ailments as indigestion, colds, malaria, coughs, and even cholera."

Yes, that Parilla. So if you come to my house for Thai food, and there is "purple basil" in the dish...you can be sure that you will go home without your cold, your malaria or your cholera!

Wait, that reminds me of a post from years ago about my parsley! Remember?!?! My gorgeous green parsley (which I was overly proud of) that turned out to be carrot tops! Oy! I can see I need to stick to chickens and leave the herbal stuff to someone who has a clue!

Real Basil...yes I am sure! I bought it at a cool aquaponics place, and the girl who picked it for me has a biology degree, so we can be pretty certain she knows what she is talking about!

Ok, so I think we can be reasonably certain that we are all caught up on our dehydrating adventures. If you want any more details (if you dare) on anything I mentioned here, just leave me a comment and I will shoot it to you!

Ciao!