Homesteading & Self-Sufficiency

Fresh herbs for Flavour & Health

Growing herbs can be very rewarding and a lot of fun as well…

I really love growing and using fresh herbs… there are a few in my garden at the moment (not as many as I would like… 🙂 ).

Aside from parsley, which is probably the one I use the most… and Basil (I use it a lot as well)… Three of my favourites are Rosemary, Thyme and Sage; mainly because of their great medicinal uses. They are excellent for using in teas to fight off colds and flu (I call it ‘stuffing’ tea because they are herbs commonly used in stuffing recipes).

I have tried a few methods for drying or dehydrating herbs for storage, and some of them were a bit of a fail.

The main thing to keep in mind when drying herbs to store, is you want to maintain as much of the nutritional qualities as you can. The more chemical components; nutrients and medicinal qualities that remain intact and as potent as possible the better.

Obviously, like any food, the very best way to benefit from herbs is to use them freshly picked, however, this is not always possible. Of course just using them in your every day cooking is always a good way to use them and even if you don’t have a lot of space, you can always grow a few favourite herbs in suitable growing container in your kitchen, or on a sunny balcony.

Perhaps you don’t have your own herbs growing at the moment, or you don’t have all the herbs you want to use growing as yet, then you might need to purchase fresh herbs to use and then you will need to store them depending on how quickly you will use them of course…

Some Tips for Keeping Fresh Herbs Fresh…

• Place long stem herbs like parsley, basil and cilantro in a vase or container of water. Just keep them at room temperature, and you only need a little water just so the bottom of the stems can draw up the moisture. This should help your fresh herbs to stay fresh for around a week.
• For herbs like thyme, rosemary and chives, which don’t have the long stems, you can put them into a plastic bag… (The type you might store your vegetables in, in your refrigerator.) It is also helpful to include a piece of paper towel so any extra moisture can be absorbed. You would then store this in your crisper compartment, or in the door of your refrigerator, so that it is away from the coldest air.
• Don’t wash your fresh herbs before you are ready to use them… this will only speed up their wilting.
• Another option for storage if you need to keep them for longer than a week, is to freeze them.  The best way to do this is to first prepare your herbs by removing the leaves from any stems. Add the leaves to a plastic Ziploc bag, keeping them in a single layer and removing as much air as possible before you seal it. These packs of herbs can then be laid flat and even stacked in your freezer for future use.

Drying Fresh Herbs

Drying or dehydrating your herbs is a great option for longer term storage… especially if you are growing your own and you find some times of the year you have a lot more than you can use at once.

The thing to keep in mind here, is that you want to dry them when they are as fresh as possible, and as quickly as you can, so as to preserve the beneficial ingredients of each of your herbs.

While storing dried herbs can prolong their use time, the quality of the herbs will still deteriorate over time. The time they stay most potent will depend on how well they are stored, assuming they are dried properly initially.

Tips for Drying and Storing Dried Herbs:

• (As with freezing) Remove the leaves from any stems.
• For herbs such as thyme and rosemary, you can leave them whole, however, for  herbs like parsley, basil and cilantro you will want to chop them to a suitable size.
• If drying naturally – You will need to keep them in a cool, dry and airy, place for a few days until they are completely dry… Putting them into a net bag and hanging them can work for this, or even a brown paper bag.
• If using a dehydrator – You will prepare them same way, and then make sure to select the settings on your drier to maintain the most nutrition. (Check the settings on your dehydrator – usually dry around 95 deg F or 35 deg C…
• Adjust the heat according to the type of herbs you are drying, for example, you might need a warmer heat if you are drying larger and thicker leaves like bay leaves.

Tips for Storing Dried Herbs

Having a store of food is always a good idea even if just for emergencies or for when you might have forgotten to get something from the store… Herbs should be a part of your food storage so you can get the benefits of using them all year round in your cooking or for home remedies. The enemies of storing any dried foods are, sunlight, heat, moisture and oxygen.

Storage Tips to Keep in Mind:

• Use resealable containers – for shorter term, you can use a BPA free plastic – for longer term storage try using sealable glass jars or other air-tight containers.
• Add oxygen absorbers to extend the shelf life beyond a few months – especially good to use even for shorter term storage if you happen to live in a humid climate.
• Refrigeration will extend the life of your stored food, even when dried. Cooler temperatures are helpful, but you will want to make sure the containers are sealed and contain absorbers to help prevent mould and spoilage.
• Don’t use mouldy herbs – Even if you think that there is only a little on the side of your package that is affected by mould, and you cannot see any signs elsewhere, it will have contaminated the whole lot beyond what is visible to the naked eye. Eating mould is detrimental for your health. Always discard food, including herbs if there is any sign of mould.

If you are not confident with your long term storage methods or conditions then try to make sure you use your dried herbs within a year or less.

If you have never tried drying your own herbs, then there is always a little bit of trial and error to start with.  Just keep in mind that natural air drying will be greatly affected by your climate and the conditions that you are able to dry them in.

As I mentioned earlier, you want to retain as much of the beneficial qualities of the herbs as possible, including the colour. When natural drying conditions are not ideal, then you might find that the colour fades more than using a quicker method, like in a dehydrator, or you might find that mould starts to form before they have fully dried.

So you just need to use some common sense and you should have no problem.

One Final Tip…

If all other options are not suitable for your situation, you can use an normal oven. Just make sure it is set at a very low temperature.

Another option, is a solar oven, if you have access to one, or you can make one, providing you can stop it getting too hot, and you can maintain a good air flow around the herbs.

Certainly, mastering the art of drying and storing herbs is a great skill to have and will make it a lot more economical if you want to start making your own natural remedies at home or enjoy the addition of herbs to your meals or teas.

Dehydrating Foods – My Favourite Method of Food Storage

With or without a Dehydrator, drying your own food has many advantages…

Are you thinking about drying foods to preserve them?

Just about every season has some food you can dry, and the variety of dried foods is significant… While many choose to dehydrate animal foods, and you can certainly do that, whether it is your more common beef and chicken to wild game jerky in the fall.

My preference is to store Vegan foods, so what I will be covering are almost any and all vegetables from corn to green beans. I will also be looking at drying all sorts of fruits – including bananas & apples which are available pretty much year-round in most grocery stores to berries you can grow or even harvest wild.

Of course the other things that I want to focus on are drying fresh herbs… not just for use in cooking but also for medicinal purposes, and herbs are great dried and stored providing it is done correctly.

But why bother? Are there any benefits to dried foods?

Most definitely!

Here are some of the benefits of drying foods.

1. It’s Economical

Have you taken note at the prices of dried fruits and vegetables in your grocery or health food store? You might have had to look twice – they’re expensive. They are particularly pricey if they are healthful versions, such as organic or free of preservatives, artificial colors and flavors.

Drying your own wholesome food is much less expensive, especially if you dry foods that are in season and/or on sale and you can buy bulk… Local produce markets are good for this. And of course don’t forget you can grow your own, and make sure you grow extra so you can dehydrate some.

Also, when you go on car trips and family vacations, bringing along some of your own dried foods can save you a lot of money on snacks and meals while traveling.  Especially good if you enjoy camping or hiking

2. Long Shelf Life

Dehydrated food is perfect to store for use in an emergency situation. Because it can last such a long time, when stored correctly, you should include it in any emergency kits you may have for yourself and your family. Or in your general food storage, especially if you are Prepping for anything unexpected that might happen.

Even if you are just storing food for short emergency situations, such as if the power goes out during a summer storm or due to some other act of nature… Having a stash of dehydrated foods along with other life necessities like fresh water or other items you might need, means you can still have fruit, vegetables, and meats (if you choose) available to prepare meals.

As I already mentioned, if you like hiking and camping, dehydrated food makes a great addition to your packs – as well as being high in nutrition, it’s lightweight and can last for an extended period of time because there is no need for refrigeration.

3. Convenience

I think it is probably obvious, from just what I have already mentioned that dried foods are very convenient.

They are really good if you have children and need to grab something quick on the way out the door. There are many situations that can occur in life unexpectedly, especially when you have children, such as if one of them needs to go to the ER, and you don’t know how long you’ll be waiting there? You and the other children will likely need something to eat at some point, so it is great to have some dried snacks on hand.

Even when you are out running errands, it’s nice to have some food in the car just in case something unexpected causes your trip to be longer than expected. In fact, you can have a take-along bag with dried foods that you always take with you in the car and in addition to the fact that you have available quick and easy healthy food, it also saves you money buying from fast food outlets.

Dried food is also convenient when you can’t get to the store, such as during a bad storm, and in the US there were some really good examples of this during some record breaking snowstorms over the past winter.

It’s also nice to be able to have dried produce on hand for soups and stews and other recipes, it can save having to go out to buy produce at the time, and end up having some go to waste in your refrigerator.

Don’t forget having ‘out of season’ treats… During winter you can serve up a fresh-tasting raspberry sauce or have on hand some other vegetables that would normally only be easily accessible during spring or summer months.

4. Healthy

Dried food retains most of the nutrients, except those that depend on the presence of water. All of the fiber remains intact and providing you know how it has been grown, it’s chemical free, devoid of preservatives and artificial flavors and colors.

Think of being able to reap the health benefits when, for example, you feel a cold coming on and you can treat yourself with your own dried herbs and even foods that can help ward off colds and flu.

5. Easy and Inexpensive to Prepare

Dehydrating food is relatively simple to do… There’s no need to fuss over sterilizing jars, or using a pressure canner, not to mention spending money on extra ingredients like sugar and vinegar which are not healthy anyway.

You start and end with just the food, only in a more concentrated form – it’s simple, and most of the food can be restored to a ‘fresh’ state by the addition of water, or water and heat.

Check out Dehydrators on Amazon… I own the 9 Tray Excalibur Below:

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Get Started Dehydrating!

So there you have just some of the many advantages of using dehydration as a way of preserving and storing fresh foods. If you have not tried it for yourself, then I encourage you to start, even if it is just using an air drying method to dry some fresh herbs. If might surprise you just how easy it can be…

Step by Step Dehydrating Food

An introduction to drying your own fresh food

Dehydrating food is something that I am keen to learn more about. It opens up a whole new world where you can store fresh produce and even make up your own camping recipes… If this is something you would also like to do, then you need to just make a start and that’s what I wanted to do here… Help people make a start!

Generalized articles and recipes are fine, but sometimes you really just need some basic information that breaks a process down into doable steps. It’s also helpful to learn more than one technique for drying foods. Here’s a how-to guide for drying foods step by step, focusing on fruits and vegetables.

You will need to look up specific instructions for each specific food you are wanting to dry, however, have a read through these steps before embarking on your venture, to get a general idea of the process and some tips I have discovered…

Step 1: Obtain Your Produce

Ok… so this probably goes without saying…

Your produce may come from your own garden, a friend/neighbor’s garden, a local farmers’ market, grocery store, etc. The main thing is that you have fresh produce that is at its peak. Even though you’ll be drying it, you don’t want shriveled, dried-up produce to start with.

(However, fruit that is somewhat overripe can still be dried if you use it to make fruit leather.)

Look for fruits and vegetables that do not have soft or mushy spots, and avoid hard, green, under-ripe fruit as well. The food does not have to look perfect; it just needs to be ripe and free of decay.

Step 2: Prepare Your Produce – Wash and Blanch

If possible, obtain your produce and dry it on the same day. Wash it well and pat it dry.

Some foods can be dried without blanching, however, others will need to be blanched or will dry a lot quicker if blanched first.

To blanch your produce, bring a large pot of water to a boil and fill a large bowl or pot with ice water. You will also need a slotted spoon or steamer basket to get the produce out of the water quickly. You are preparing to blanch your produce – dip it quickly in boiling water, and then plunge it in cold water to stop the cooking.

Sources recommend that you do not skip this step, because it will make all the difference in the quality and shelf life of your foods. This is because blanching kills bacteria that cause decay. The exceptions to the blanching rule are mushrooms, which should just be wiped clean, and bananas, which will soften too much in boiling water.

Blanch vegetables for 3-5 minutes and fruits for 2-3 minutes.

Step 3: Pat Dry and Spread on Drying Sheets

After blanching, place your produce on trays or cookie sheets, cover with several layers of paper towels, and then pat it dry.

Step 4: Slice and Cut Food

Slice fruits like strawberries, bananas, pineapples and apples into thin slices. Cut corn kernels off the cob. Halve stone fruits and remove the stones (pits).

Step 5: Place Food in Dehydrator (if you don’t have one, skip to Step 6)

Place the food on the dryer trays with space between the pieces with no overlaps (for some things, like chopped onions having overlap won’t be a problem). Turn the dehydrator to the setting recommended by the manufacturer, set your timer.

If you don’t have a Dehydrator machine…

Step 6: OR Place Food on Cloth-Covered Screens or String with Thread

Using old window screens (as long as they are lead-free) is fine, and so is stapling screening to a plain wood frame. Cover with cloth, place food on the cloth (close together but not touching), and cover with another cloth. Place outside in a dry, shady area and bring in at night (before any dew settles). Repeat for several days.

[Reminds me of years ago when I was living on a farm, we had large tray’s with screen, and would cut up fruit; apricots, peaches, plums etc. and put out on timber stands in the sun to dry…]

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If you string your food on thread, as with green beans or whole, small mushrooms, you’ll need to hang it in a dry, shady area as well and bring it inside at night. Both methods can be done indoors in a dry attic, as well.

So there are a few dehydrating tips to hopefully get you started… it is really not all that difficult, and when you have your own freshly dehydrated food then there is a whole new set of lessons… How to store it short and long term, how you can use these foods in dry mixes etc.

One other thing I would also be interested in, is learning more about dehydrating already prepared meals…

Maybe another day 🙂